If there was one manager who spent the entire 11/12 season watching Newcastle through closed fingers, it was Tony Pulis. Wincing at every one of the 16 goals Demba Ba plundered for the Geordies as Alan Pardew masterminded an astonishing fifth-placed finish, the Welshman will have wondered about what might have been. In January 2011, six months prior to his move up north, the Senegalese international was poised to shake hands with Pulis and sign for the club in a £6 million transfer from Hoffenheim. With the financial terms of the deal having been agreed with the German side, and personal terms having been agreed with the Potters, it was a supposedly dodgy knee that halted any transfer.
''I am desperately disappointed. You look at him and he has a tremendous scoring record. We have been over to watch him three or four times. Everyone has come back with good reports. But we have to put the club first and I understand that. As we have progressed as a club, the medical side has progressed as well. They take great responsibility and great care when they look at the players we are trying to bring in.'' - Tony Pulis, January 2011.
Ba would return to the Britannia Stadium on Halloween, guised as the ghost of failed transfers past, blasting home a hat-trick to rub salt into the wounds of the Potters hierarchy.
Recent Journalism & New Media graduate. Insatiable thirst for all things football, and hopes to break into the field of sports journalism in the near future.
Have made a significantly insignificant playing career out of receiving several slaps around the head for not passing the ball.