Dear Ba, this time it really is Do or Die!

Fernando Torres’ latest injury might serve as a boon for out of favor striker Demba Ba after all. The Senegalese International has been serving a tough time in his career since the move from Newcastle to Chelsea, hardly featuring this season for Chelsea, let alone talking about scoring goals. It can or cannot be debated that like Torres, was Ba actually losing form at his former club. Eitherway, if he was not in form at his former club then the blame automatically lies onto us for not scouting better on our transfer targets. Demba Ba has yet to complete a game this season for Chelsea, making small cameo appearances now and then. Ofcourse we will always remember the 64 minutes that he had featured against Aston Villa in which he easily took the top spot of the table in offside attempts.
Ba had a really impressive debut for Chelsea, scoring a brace, not the finest goals you’d like, but two decent poacher’s goals. Ironically that was the time when we thought that Chelsea did a wonderful business selling Sturridge and getting in Ba. We all know how good that move was. Okay, I am certainly not going to blabber again on how bad it was to sell Danny boy away, the focus here is Ba. What Ba promised were goals, not the beautiful ones, but yeah, the important ones. His heavy built and good ball control in the previous weeks had given us enough to dream on about. But his career low has to be the fact that he could not displace a ridiculously out of form Torres from the starting lineup. Rafa believed in Torres, and that somehow left Ba in the shadows. And though Torres did do well under Rafa by the end of the season, you can only wonder whether that sort of chance would have helped Ba better or not. But then, what’s done is done, and we managed to lift the Europa title with Torres, considering the fact that Ba was cup tied after featuring for Newcastle already in the competition. But Ba’s woes worsened even after the manager changed. He was automatically relegated to the third choice striker behind Torres and newcomer Eto’o. If you have to believe the Mata case, and the explanation that Jose gives us, he actually looks hard on the determination and the passion that the players display through out, even in training. Mata proved that he deserves a spot in the team, and others should really follow the example set by him.

Ba has even scored some fantastic goals for us in the last season, especially that beauty against Man Utd and Man City. That does mean that we didn’t make a blunder getting him from Newcastle. He has it in him to lift himself to perform for the club. As a human being we have already witnessed the amount of humility that the man has in him, showcased perfectly by admitting that it is not the coach’s fault that he isn’t performing for the club, but his own. He isn’t going to moan that he isn’t getting game time, but that might also seem as a lack of hunger in the eyes of Jose.
I am certainly not saying Ba can be anywhere close to that 30-35 goal striker for us. But in Ba we have a striker who is a mile different than the type of strikers Eto and Torres are. As a matter of fact, all three are vastly different from each other. And though some might say that neither of them are in form, we could and should make the most of the resources we have and make the best of the three type of strikers we have, rather than moaning about not having a proper inform striker, losing a coming-into-form striker to injury, selling a striker to our rivals and seeing him shine, or you know, loaning out our best option out again. Different teams have different playing style. And having three different type of strikers means that we have three different playing strategies, three widely different styles. But in the end all is going to depend on whether Jose sees it that way, or whether Ba uses the small cameos here and there, in the absence of Torres to prove to Jose that he is indeed hungry to play more and more games for the Europa League champions and that he is not just going to sit back and give up without atleast putting up a fight! This might be a golden chance that is presented to Ba, the injury to Torres. I am sure that Eto’o will replace Torres as our number one striker for the time being, but it still means that Ba will be the back up striker now, getting 10-15 minutes here and there in matches. And yes, he can and should make the best of that what is presented to him to save his Chelsea career!
Ba isn’t going to get any younger, and so this might be his only chance to win the silverware that every player dreams of winning. I don’t see him leaving Chelsea and joining any big club of the similar strature, so yes, this is indeed do or die for him!
What do you think about Demba Ba? is he Chelsea quality? Does he deserve a chance to prove his worth? Can he make the most of it? Please leave your thoughts and views in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you!
Follow Demba Ba on Twitter and tweet him your own message: @Dembabafoot
Follow the writer: @T_L_Kuzhi
Thank You!
🙂