Ba and Erdinç – next season’s Toon strike force?

Posted on June 14th, 2011 | 30 Comments |

Alan Pardew confirms interest in Ba and Erdinç.
Pardew confirms interest in both
Could Demba Ba and Mevlüt Erdinç be Newcastle United’s first choice strike force next season?

As previously speculated, it does indeed seem that Alan Pardew has considerable interest in Mevlüt Erdinç.

Speaking to The Journal, Pardew said:

“Erdinç has always been on our radar. He’s a very good player and that is all I will say at the moment.

“We had a bit of a disappointment with Kevin Gameiro as he has decided to go elsewhere. We made a fantastic offer to the club and to him but these things happen.

“We tried very hard on that one, but we always knew there would be setbacks along the way and we have always had other people in mind, deals we have been trying to keep to ourselves for obvious reasons.

“We are working extremely hard to make those deals happen and I’m pretty happy with how things have gone so far. We should have another signing finished in the next few days, and we will able to confirm that one as well.“

Erdinç, who has 53 goals in 155 appearances (9 in 34 last season for Paris Saint-Germain) doesn’t look to be the most prolific scorer but apparently likes to play alongside a target man.

And with that in mind, maybe Pardew has visions of him lining up alongside Demba Ba next season, about whom Pardew said:

“Demba Ba has done very well since he came to England and he’s a good player. I’m very much aware of him and I probably know what he is capable of more than most because I’ve known about him for a while, before he went to West Ham.

“We’re not the only club who are interested, but we are trying. There is always competition and we will keep plugging away.”

That sounds to me like we are actively pursuing both these players, as has been previously speculated in the press.

Of course nothing is signed, sealed and delivered yet but what do you think about a Ba and Erdinç strike partnership for the Toon?

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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30 Responses

  5. I think either one of these players could play lone role, in front of a zog-arfa-jonas set up.erding will get good service that way, which will boost his goal ratio, which is actually slightly better than 1 in 3 if you look at his entire career so far

  6. Thought we were looking for a fast mobile striker to play in front of ben Arfa, like Gameiro.

    I don’t think we should be going for the guy deemed to be not as good as Gameiro by PSG. look for the next big thing like Idiye brown at Sochaux. Someone on the rise, not a plan B. Sturridge would be great, but not going to happen.

  8. We have to go to plan b, since plan a refused to sign. Otherwise we’d sign no one. Basically anyone other than gamiero is plan b.

  9. What about Shola I read – well about him?! He’s a nice fella I’m sure, but not a Premiership striker I’m afraid. Remember even Ipswich changed their mind on him. He’s perfect for the Championship – but we need quality next season and it won’t be easy to persuade really good players to come to NUFC – for a whole load of reasons that we are all aware of!

  10. According to the Times, personal terms have been agreed with Ba, however and true to type, the agents (agents?) have stuck their snouts into the trough and are haggling over the fee, the signing on fee presumably? Greedy gits.

    The paper’s also saying we’ve bid for Erdinc and Swansea are interested in Mike Williamson. Obviously they’re pi$$ing about over Taylor.

  13. Don’t really care about these two. As long as we have a good midfield that can provide the right service, I think we have a pretty good striker alreay at the club. I hope Best gets a good chance to shine next season. He has bundles of potential. Of course, we do need a good 20 a season striker, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get one. Not really sure about Erdinc; his ratio is poor, but again, with the right service he could do well for us. The quotes are interesting, but I don’t necessarily think we’ll get these two players. We may be looking somewhere completely different and doing things discretely so that Stakeface Redknob and Kenny Dalgliesh (does anyone else think he’s started to look like Paul Daniels?) don’t start poking their sticks in.

  14. Gary – Shola and Erdinc had very similar records last season, and Shola was playing in the EPL. You want Erdinc instead of Shola?

  15. i want Ba just so we can sing the Demba Ba song

    ‘Oh na na Demba Ba Oh na na Demba Ba’

  16. #15 – I like that, raised a chuckle from the depths of all this transfer BS lunacy!

  17. I think we need Ba defo, so long as his persistent knee trouble doesnt cause us bother – be interesting to see what happens in a medical…

    Erdinc is a bit of an unknown to me – but surely offers more than Shola or McLoven?? and Besty, all 3 of ’em have a distinct championship feel to them.

    Sturridge aint gonna leave Chelse now, but Wellbeck??

  18. I’m still worried about what sort of player Ben Arfa when he comes back from injury. Will he be able to play the majority of the games? Will he be able to regain top form in a relatively short ammount of time ?

    I have nightmares of him being like Darren…..injured every other week.

    With that in mind i’d certainly be happy to see us having plenty of options for each position. Hopefully N’zogbia will join even though I don’t like him as a person. I see N’zogbia as a very similair player to Ben Arfa these days…. They can both play on either wing or through the middle.

    Very disappointed that it looks as if Gervinho will be going to Arsenal. It was never looking promising that we’d get him but now there seems no chance.

  19. Erdinc, pronounced Erdinch i believe, errrmmm !
    Actually prefer Sow or Idiye Brown, not to mention Wellbeck, but Sturridge would be my choice, were it not for the £20m. price tag.
    As for Ba, hopefully be ok, but if it’s based on his short stint @ W/Ham well…..
    If Erdinc is the big name striker we are negotiating for, sorry not impressed, actually dissapointed.
    There’s better strikers available, guess he will have to be sold to pay for Gameiro and we will be looking to get him on the cheap, nothing changes around here !

    On the chance of riling the overly sensative Celtic fans,
    whats the story on Izaguirre, cause the writing is on the wall about El Toro, he’s outta here, but then apart from a cheap bid by Pool, he is’nt actually being chased by anyone else we are aware of.
    Perhaps with the rebuilding going on here it might be in his interest to stay.
    And the Celtic fans can relax, nah ! somebody from the Epl will buy him, guys too good for the SPL.

  20. Paulos

    So you dont like N’Zogbia as a person ?
    And how many times have you been in his company ?
    Or are you going on reports from others, who like yourself have probably never even met the guy ?

    Give a dog a bad name, same with Ireland when he was here,same about Joey when he arrived (he is now the fans choice)
    My point is there have been a number of players , who have been demonised by people like yourself, without any real reason, than reading media rubbish about the person.

  21. @20

    I don’t like N’zogbia as a person because when he was with us the 1st time round he rarely seemed to be giving his best and he didn’t really seem like he wanted to be here most of the time he was (reinforced by the comments he made every few weeks).

    He’s been making the same noises at Wigan and i’d expect that if we signed him we’d be hearing about how he wants to leave for a bigger club within a season or 2. You can choose to believe he was just misquoted or his comments were taken “out of context” (yeah right). Lots of players leave when they outgrow their surroundings but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it.

    However if he does the business on the pitch and we don’t lose money on him when he leaves I don’t really care how he acts and he was consistently good for Wigan last season…

    As for Barton…. you know you’d dislike him if he played for another club. He’s gone 1-2 seasons without any major controversies (if you choose to ignore punching pedersen). He’s played well this season and he’s also in conflict with an unpopular board which helps to make him more popular with the fans. Ofc maybe i’m just being influenced by all those press reports about him stubbing cigarettes out in peoples faces, beating up teenagers and those events (and many more) didn’t actually happen.

    I don’t think I am especially influenced by the media… Unlike most Newcastle fans I actually think our current board is doing the right thing with the club in terms of reducing the wage bill and getting us on an even keel financially. I’m also not influenced by fans talking about Mike Ashley only being at the club for the money when he has in fact not made any money from the club and has actually invested a lot.

  22. kyle lafferty of rangers!
    nah,i was going to suggest this in the last article but the comments developed into a bit of a war of words.
    hmmm,erding really doesn’t seem like the goal getter we need at the moment.and i wish we’d stop being linked with midfielders any more.really how many more can we sign,even though brown is good.
    we could look to portugal,holland,scotland or the mid table bundesliga teams even,for good players to add to our squad who don’t come with inflated prices.

  23. what happened to pardew wanting barnetta?i know i shouldn’t even suggest yet Another midfielder but i remember him being a fan of the player.barnetta sure made joe hart look like a chum at wembley.
    speaking of bayer leverkusen,we could have a go at stefan kiesling.truth be told i don’t know much about him but i think he’s good.or we could have a go at moussa sow!that even rhymes…sow’s really higly talked about over in germany.

  24. There does seem a glut of midfielders at the moment, esp if Ferguson moves into a left mid position (with the arrival of Naylor 2nd choice and Izaguerrie 1st choice)…plus Barton/Nolan/Smudger still here at the moment, and Gutherie….

    If Fraser Forster does go in a deal to Celtic, then Krul becomes the 3rd keeper, Harper 2nd, and somebody new and quality becomes 1st….but who??

    And RB 1st choice improvement wud be nice, keeping Simpson as spare and selling Raylor.

    Plus 3x strikers (assuming Ba and Erdinc, although perhaps a big assumption at this stage_) – who else? Chamack or Bartender (if arse buy Gervinho)…?

  25. “We had a bit of a disappointment with Kevin Gameiro as he has decided to go elsewhere. We made a fantastic offer to the club and to him but these things happen. We are working extremely hard to make those deals happen”

    Call me a complete banana but whats wrong with sitting down with Kev Gams and telling it like it is. Wooing him with tales of Toon nightlife/women/hero worship or whatever floats his boat then ask him if he fancies it ? If he says “Mais Non je prefer Espana ou PSG” then the job’s done. How hard is that ?

    I’m guessing but I imagine some players dont fancy the Toon for football reasons i.e. no European football and others for Fatman/Pardwho reasons.

    So surely the key here is to not let Fatman, Weasel or Pardwho anywhere near a potential target and just get Carr to sort it out or Steve Stone or Carver. Anyone with a football brain :)

  29. CLiNT FLiCK says:

    “Gameiro’s from Paris mate, end of”

    Ah but he wanted to go to Valencia so that means nowt.

    Anyway my post was meant tongue in cheek because clearly you couldnt keep a player from meeting the owner, MD or manager after he’d actually signed for the club………………….or could you ??????

    Also the “hard work” Pardwho mentioned is what exactly ? Ringing up his agent and asking him how much his client wants ?

    As for Eliaquim Mangala, someones got one of those anagram makers and they’re just making up names as they go :)