Demba Ba: do we really want him at Arsenal? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Tony Attwood
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Demba Ba was turned down by Gillingham, and Swansea, according to press reports. Plus Le Havre, Lyons, Auxerre, and Amiens. Watford gave him five months. Stoke agreed transfer from Hoffenheim but didn’t see it through because they thought he had a knee injury. In fact reports suggest that no one will insure his knee against further injury because of a previous operation.
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It was Rouen who gave him a chance, and turned him into a goal scorer. Now every transfer window that opens, the name of Demba Ba is there, not least because for some odd reason I can not fathom he has a £7.5m release clause in his contract. How did he manage to get that?
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The early set backs, the way he overcame them, his recent record, and the odd release clause, all mean he looks a bargain except…
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Apparently in addition to the release fund, he also has an agent who is demanding £2m. And we must remember that when West Ham wanted to give him away in 2011, even the free transfer had all sorts of hidden deals inside it, that meant that he actually cost Newcastle something like £5m.
So even though the knee issue could be overlooked since he has only been out with injury 6% of the time with Newcastle, there is a lurking problem of the “others” – the hangers on who make money by insisting that they somehow work for the player.
Demba Ba can score: 36 goals in the League for Newcastle and West Ham in 66 games. So even at £7.5m plus £2m add on fees, he looks cheap. (West Ham having let him go now have to pay Liverpool much more than that for Carroll who is on loan at WHU)
Now we are told by those who claim to be in the know that Chelsea have pulled out of the deal to sign him. Why was that? Injury worries? Agent fees? A salary demand of £3.64m per annum – which is probably less than Theo is being offered? Or just brinkmanship?
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But then what are Chelsea doing playing that game? They have the money, and the odd million here or there won’t make any real difference to their problems in meeting FFP.
The latest news is that Arsenal are bidding for the player – which seems strange in that Chelsea can out-bid us any time they want. The reason players come to Arsenal at the moment is to work with Mr Wenger and have a stable club, rather than one that changes managers on a regular basis. But I doubt that Demba Ba’s agents think like that.
Pardew at Newcastle has made a few statements about loyalty, and the need for Demba Ba to stay with the club to show the fans he is loyal. But you know that when anyone talks about loyalty these days, all the cards have been played. Pardew has also said, “I think he needs, in this window, to make a decision fairly early. I think for everyone’s sake, most of all himself. Especially for our fans – they need to know he’s going to be with us to the summer or not. We need to know as well, we need to make sure that we have a replacement ready if he leaves.
“He needs to give a message of some description. We’re in an important stage of the season for us. We had a terrible result against Arsenal, we need to turn that around.”
Newcastle really do have a bit of a problem though. Andy Carroll went to Liverpool on January 31 2011, although for an insane amount of money. They then bought a much cheaper, but as it turns out much better, player, and players today, as we well know, show no loyalty. They should not have been taken by surprise.
Pardew complained that, “I think people are representing him who are not actually representing him,” which is fairly good.
Do we want Demba Ba? Well, as a player yes. I thought he played well against us last week. But we must always remember that he will do the same to Arsenal as he is currently doing to Newcastle.