When Demba Ba bundled a shot beyond the scrambling Brad Friedel for Newcastle’s first equaliser on Sunday, it seemed the final stage in his being taken seriously as a true Premier League quality striker. His fifth league goal of the season and his 12th in 15 Premier League starts since joining West Ham from Hoffenheim in January, Ba is perhaps one of the most on form strikers in the country.

Sunday’s game against Tottenham indeed seemed to sum up the French-born striker perfectly. He contributed little to the overall game, attempting just 23 passes (only 15 of which were accurate) and rarely competing for the ball. Given just three shots at goal, however, he took what chance he had and turned home Jonás Gutierrez’s teasing cross.

It wasn’t at all surprising to see Ba grab a goal despite so few chances. With five goals from just 17 shots this season, the Senegalese has a better shots to goal ratio this season than Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, Edin Dzeko, Fernando Torres and Luis Suárez. Of the regularly starting ‘big name’ strikers in the league, only Sergio Agüero has a better ratio, having scored eight goals from 25 shots.

It is that sort of accuracy which has been crucial to Newcastle’s impressive start to the season. They remain unbeaten after eight games, playing a largely counter attacking game which is suited perfectly to Ba’s pace and strength.

Ba is a poacher. Plain and simple. His game is to get in the penalty box and put the ball in the net. He’ll contribute little to the overall play of his team, though he’ll run a lot and work hard, but give him a sniff of goal and the chances are that he’ll take it.

Little was known on these blinkered shores of Ba before he joined West Ham’s doomed bid for Premier League survival. It might have been very different had a short period at Watford during the 2004-05 season proven more successful, but Ba had only recently converted to playing as a striker when he arrived in London. Originally a defensive midfielder, Ba had trials at Lyon and Auxerre but failed to impress. His move up front would eventually work for him, but not until he moved to Rouen in the Championnat de France Amateur (CFA), the fourth tier of French football.

His success at Rouen earned a move to Belgian side Mouscron, though at the time Nantes, Lille and Lens were said to be tracking his progress. A three year offer from the Belgians swung the balance in their favour, however, and Ba made the move. It wasn’t an ideal start to life with Mouscron though, and just three games into his career with them he suffered a broken tibia and fibula, an injury which kept him out for eight months. But all was not lost as seven goals in the nine games at the end of the season after his return saw him on the move again, this time to the newly rich German side, TSG Hoffenheim.

A huge part of the team that earned Hoffenheim promotion to the Bundesliga, Ba saw a move to VfB Stuttgart collapse in 2009 due to a failed medical. He signed a new deal at Hoffenheim, but a move remained on the cards and eventually looked set to happen when he travelled to Stoke for a medical. Once again his body didn’t stand up to the tests though, and Tony Pulis pulled out of the deal, commenting after his subsequent move to West Ham that Avram Grant’s side had taken a ‘massive risk’.

The move worked out well for Ba though, despite his own injury worries and West Ham’s eventual relegation, he scored seven goals in 12 appearances, a fact that looked certain to earn him a move back to the Premier League. Many destinations were mooted, but it was Newcastle who took the gamble on his fitness, picking Ba up on a free transfer, despite the fact that West Ham had paid some £7 million for him only a few months earlier – a mark, perhaps, of just how poorly West Ham were being run.

In moving to Newcastle, he has found exactly the right place to be for that sort of game to be appreciated. If there is any club in the world where a goal scorer is truly appreciated, it is Newcastle. By far the two most famous sons of the Magpies are Jackie Milburn and Alan Shearer, men who scored 406 goals for the club between them. To suggest that Ba, already 26 years old, can be held in their company would be sacrilegious, but should he continue the sort of form that he has begun his Newcastle career with, he will find himself warmly greeted by the fans.

Stats in this article were provided by EPLIndex.com 

As well as being a regular contributor to The Football Project, Simon is editor of a new world football blog, Lovely Left Foot.