why do you think no one came in for him

at £7.5mil

OK his knee is apparently dodgy (according to the medics at one club) but there's been no sign of that last year,

And I accept that while he is a good player he wouldn't regularly start for some of the top top teams,

But as back up anywhere in there league or first choice at almost all of the clubs ?

We had to let him talk to anyone who bid, so we would have known about it, but nothing.

I think there wasn't even a release clause in there and anyone who cared to ask was just shown the contract then quoted £40mil.

 

I found this very strange too, who wouldn't want a player who scored all them goals last season

 

There might of been clubs in but it's up to Ba if he wanted to sign for them. Maybe he didn't even want to entertain talking to anyone. We won't know the full details but I'm sure if one of the big established prem clubs knocked at the door then things might if been different and that is what surprises me at his price I would of thought he would have some top end premier league interest. Maybe all the managerial changes with the clubs you would expect to come in for him (spurs, scousers) has affected it. Either way, I'm happy he is still a toon player.

 

that's my point, I do believe that pretty much any player would go to play in the CL especially with a team who could win it and I wouldn't actually blame them for wanting to achieve that in their career. I also believe that there would be interest at £7mil for a player like Ba from even the top clubs, as rotational back-up at least, especially a club competing on four fronts.

I can easily believe that many clubs, including the likes of 'Pool and Spurs would be told no by the player, regardless of the 'bigger club' hype purported by the media, but not the likes of PSG, Man City etc.

This all leads me to believe it was tosh that flappy chops blabbed without checking to a simpering set of southern journos hanging off his every word. Either that or it was a well executed ploy to sell online advertising ...

 

Maybe he truly doesn't want to go because he loves the toon

I <3 Ba xxxxxxxxx oooooo

 

Like it or not, he has a well documented history of suffering with knee injuries. Whilst on paper, £7m might seem like a snip, he would no doubt be looking at signing at least a 4 year contract. This would need to be substantially improved terms than what he is on with us, so lets say around £60k per week minimum. Over a 4 year contract, with wages and transfer fee taken in to account, this is an outlay of just under £19.5m. This is quite a large financial commitment for a player given the fact he is a known injury risk (despite going largely injury free last season) and went the last half of the season without scoring.

I personally still think he would have been a hell of a signing for another side but I'm delighted he seems to be staying with us.

 

I think people DID come in for him but Demba said No. nothing more complicated that that I think.

 

apparently west ham activated the clause but he rejected them straight away haha

 

Clubs don't like beng knocked back. They won't make a bid if they think they're going to be rejected. It makes them look bad.

Ba is very happy here. We're a good club and playing in Europe.

I expect Ba's agent was instructed to tell anyone who was interested that Ba would only move to a club in Europe and who were willing to pay him singficantly more. Unless there was a significant improvement, why change.

That limits the potential suitors in England to 5 clubs, and in Europe to a largish handful. None decided they wanted to pay a lot more than we are paying him, plus the £7.5 m, given his knee problem.

 

Well if he would have only gone to a CL club and said no to the rest:-

Chelsea - Seam to only be going for big names and hoping Torres is better next year.
Arsenal - Maybe if Van Persie had left but not until he's out the door.
Man U - Too old for Fergie to change into a manu player.
Man C - They don't need another bench warmer with fair play coming in.

Plus the 7.5 is only what we need to allow other teams to talk to him, if he or the agents are taking a cut it may have been increased.

 

I think that he is not good enough for any of Chelsea, City or Utd as their frontline strikers are all better players than him. When you factor in the risk of the dodgy knee i think he is not going to be getting any better offers than the one he is on at the moment.

 

First of all people may have come in for him. We certainly wouldn't know if they have given the accuracy of the media. I suspect he has probably turned them down. The big guns wouldn't be interested for very obvious reasons. His knee and fitness would be a concern to them. Yes it didn't blow up last year, but lets not have anyone kidding themselves that he is now out of that woods. Also their interest is tempered by him essentially having a very good season but only really scoring for half of it. Yes his positional change would have contributed to that and we probably would give him the benefit of the doubt based on seeing him close quarters. But to them though there is no way of knowing whether it was positional or just a hot streak he was on at the time. And lastly if there are these little doubts, they see no value when they can just go and spend 20m and be guaranteed to get what they want in the vast majority of cases.

 

If Harry was still at Spuds I reckon they'd have gone for him. He was the one sprouting **** about this originally