Alan Pardew: “Every time the ball comes near (Ba) he seems to hit the target at the moment.
“In terms of the other strikers not contributing or rather not scoring at the moment, yeah, perhaps that is a worry and we’re going to have to look at the side and make sure we get the balance right, that we’re not so dependent on Demba.
“Having said that, he’s smashing them in from free-kicks and everywhere at the moment and he almost had a hat-trick again against West Brom.
"He’s in such great form that we have to take that as a major asset and take it forward from that.
"Best has not created enough opportunities of late.
“I am a little bit worried about that. I've mentioned his potency as a goalscorer before. That's what he is – a goalscorer.
“But he's not really getting a lot of chances to show that it's going to come to the fore at the moment. We'll have to wait and see.
“I just think the last couple of games we've created enough chances for him to have got on the end of something, so we'll have to look at that. We've analysed the West Brom game now.”
"I have to decide whether Ameobi and Ba can work as partnership,
“Yeah, I think they can. I don't see a problem with that. But we will be without Demba in January and February and we have to look at something else."