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There's been some talk recently about Chelsea offloading Demba Ba, and over the last few days we've heard rumblings that Russian outfit Anzhi Makhachkala are interested in picking him up. It's not really a move that makes a lot of sense for anyone involved -- Chelsea are low on striker depth and Ba's not expensive enough to justify dumping him, Anzhi have Samuel Eto'o, and Demba Ba presumably doesn't want to get exiled to Dagestan.
But anyway, the fine folks at the Slavic Football Union (and a few other Russian football sources on top of them) say that Anzhi are denying any interest:
Anzhi have denied that they're interested in signing Chelsea forward Demba Ba.
— Domm Norris (@dommnorris) July 5, 2013
More interesting than any possible transfer, at least to me, is the reaction to it. Whenever Ba's linked to a move away, there's inevitably a slew of responses along these lines: 'good, he was never good enough anyway'. Which is kind of perverse, since he was brought in as cheap, capable depth at centre forward. He's scored some important goals for the side and has a financial fair play hit of about £6 million a season, which is fairly trivial. So, Ba-dislikers (I know you're out there) -- why?