Are we getting near to Demba deal?

Could Demba be shaking hands with NUFC soon? There have been bits and bobs in the press over the last couple of days regarding the future of Demba Ba.

With January fast approaching there is little doubt that speculation will intensify regarding the in form striker, especially with the the revelation that the now famous release clause is still active.

However the sounds coming from both Alan Pardew and Demba Ba seem to suggest that we are closer to seeing an end to the speculation regarding his future, with talk of a new deal in the offing and the revelation that it is being "worked on" behind the scenes. Additionally, Pardew has stated his admiration for the Senegalese striker and praised his character both on and off the pitch. Smooth talking from the silver supremo?

In return we have snippets from Demba Ba which seem to suggest he is settled on Tyneside, including little things like how he loves his Tyneside home and stuff like that. In fairness to Ba not once has he said he wants away, but that is also not to ignore the fact that he has remained coy on his future whenever questioned.

Keeping hold of Demba Ba is a must for me. He's shown he can score consistently in this league and goalscorers like that are hard to come by and, perhaps more importantly, tend to cost a lot of money to purchase. For that reason and that reason alone it is important that a deal is worked out.

If Ba does end up leaving us in the next transfer window we will apparently have the cash to replace him, but the cash needed to replace him would be far more than the £7 million (reportedly) we'd recoup from his sale, or even less that £7 million (again reportedly) once you take out any clauses that exist within the deal.

I'm not saying we should bankrupt ourselves to keep a player, and in reality giving Ba a compromise between the deal he wants and the deal we want to offer wouldn't bankrupt us, but we must do enough to keep hold of him and get the bleedin clause out of his contract!

The funny thing is I have a felling that we'll actually have a happy ending on this one. No inside sources, no gossip, just a gut feeling.

Anyone else have any particular feelings on this one?