Tough time ahead for Toon's Ba

The 26-year-old striker will join up with the Senegal squad ahead of next month's tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea having confirmed his status as a genuine Premier League marksman with 11 goals in his last 10 league starts for the Magpies. That return, which has come on top of the seven he scored in 12 top-flight appearances for West Ham during the second half of the last campaign, has fully justified Alan Pardew's decision to take him to Tyneside during the summer, and his absence for the duration of the tournament will leave a huge gap. Ba is thrilled at the prospect of representing his country against the best Africa has to offer, but will leave the North-East in part reluctantly. He said: "It's going to be difficult, very difficult, because the season is still running and it just feels like you are going and the team is staying. "It's going to be weird because it is going to be my first African Cup as well. "But I just hope I don't go there for nothing. "For me, for the whole country, for the whole team, we are just excited to be playing in this competition, and we are going to try to come back and make our country proud of us." Asked if he will have one eye on events on Tyneside during his absence, Ba replied: "Not one, two." Ba's goals have been a major factor in Newcastle's impressive start to the season, although his three in the last four games, including a penalty at Manchester United, have helped to secure only a single point with injuries biting hard into Pardew's resources at Norwich last weekend. His form has taken some by surprise, although he insists not those who know him well. Ba said: "Maybe a couple of people are surprised - I know some are not because they know me, they know me very well. "If people are surprised, hopefully I am just going to continue to surprise them." Pardew, who has contacts at West Ham following his spell in charge at Upton Park, is one of those who expected much from the former Hoffenheim striker from the off. As he contemplated his in-form hitman's departure for Africa, he said: "We can't ignore that, we accept that's going to happen. But Demba Ba is absolutely terrific at the minute. "We will hold on to him as long as we can and then he will go off, but then we have got Leon Best, Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands and Hatem Ben Arfa, of course, to shoulder the burden until such time as he comes back." Ba could conceivably have ended up playing against the Magpies this weekend had a trial at Swansea earlier in his career paid dividends. However, asked if he felt he had something to prove this weekend, he said: "Not at all. "That's a team where I went on trial and didn't make it, so I just went back home to France and did it the other way. "On Saturday, I hope I am going to face them and try to win the game." If Ba does have regrets about missing a significant proportion of the English season because of his international commitments, he will not be sorry to see the back of the north-east weather for a few weeks at least. He said with a smile: "It's cold. I can't get used to the cold, so I am just going to struggle until March, April." Pardew will make late decisions over Fabricio Coloccini, Mike Williamson and Cheick Tiote as they fight their way back from injury, but Dan Gosling is suspended after being sent off in the 4-2 defeat at Norwich.