Newcastle benefit as Ba feels like old self

For almost seven months, it’s made for grim post-match viewing, never-ending re-runs of those bad days at the office, but finally Demba Ba can settle back and feast his eyes on a welcome reminder of what he does best.

The Newcastle forward willingly put himself in the uncomfortable position of reviewing DVDs of games from his lengthy score-sheet hiatus in an attempt to identify exactly where he was going wrong. It’s proved to be a valuable exercise in self-help, one that ultimately paid-off, with a single, telling swing of the boot to break the deadlock early in the second half.

“I’ve spent a lot of time after games, watching them over again and analysing them, seeing what I had to do to change the bad stuff and that’s why I am back scoring,” he said after scoring for the first time since February with a memorable effort.