Ba admitted after the match he wasn’t “happy with some things”, and his brother, Hamady, labelled Pardew “crazy” on social networking site Twitter for leaving him out of his team.
Some could argue Pardew has the right to play who the hell he wants, but he DID tell Ba in the summer (during the transfer window): "I've told Demba he will start 90% of the games at centre-forward. Playing him on the left seems to have hit his confidence".
Alan Pardew: “Ba got two goals, and he could have had a hat-trick.
“Sometimes players play well when they’re angry, and he played well.
"I can’t keep everybody happy in this group of players, and we’ve still got one or two who didn’t get on.
“(Gabriel) Obertan is going terrific in training, and he wanted on.
“It’s a juggling act for me as a manager, and I have to get it right.
“Ba changed the face of the game. He gave us the mentality that we could win the game. In the second half, we gave a good account of ourselves, and not many teams will twice come back here with the players we have missing.
“He isn’t the only one that is upset – Sylvain (Marveaux) was upset for coming off at half-time.
“But this is how it is in the big league. Fortunately for us, Demba made the difference.”