2. Unhappy At Playing Far Left
The final few months of the season was clearly not a happy time for Demba Ba. With the arrival of his Senegalese international team-mate Papiss Cisse, surprisingly the pair struggled to gel with each other up front in a 4-4-2 formation and Newcastle's goals dried up. With the emerging importance of Hatem Ben Arfa, Alan Pardew experimented and played Ba far left with Ben Arfa far right and Cisse in the middle. The result was that Newcastle couldn't stop winning games and Cisse couldn't stop scoring. Though stuck on the left hand side, Ba's formed dipped and he looked increasingly uncomfortable and downbeat about the change. He struggled to get into goal scoring positions and when he did he couldn't hit the back of the net for love, nor money and he became frustrated. Ba will be concerned that Ben Arfa and Cisse have become so important to Newcastle that once again he would be forced wide left in an uncomfortable position and again the goals won't come next season. He wants to be playing up front as the first name on the list and Pardew won't be able to offer him that right now.