There was talk earlier about Demba Ba loan rumors, but those have firmed up
Chelsea are looking at a bit of traffic jam at the center forward position. With Samuel Eto'o arriving imminently to stir up the mix of Fernando Torres, the Unmovable; Romelu Lukaku, the Not-yet-anointed; Demba Ba, the Stop-gap; and Andre Schurrle, the Wildcard, somebody will probably be left without a chair when the music stops. Most likely, that person will be Demba Ba.
Ba, a £7m signing 7 months ago, arrived as an opportunistic stop-gap but after a hot start settled into a pattern of general disappointment punctuated by world class, acrobatic strikes. And except for a hilarious episode of "journalism" by Spanish tabloids, Ba's name has been front and center any time talk of Chelsea selling a striker has come up this summer. Although this time, the hot rumors are of a loan.
The Magpies have been told to almost treble their opening offer for a loan deal for Ba with a fee of around £3m required to land his signature for the season.
-source: The Chronicle
So back to Newcastle where he's had so much success, at least according to the "North East’s most popular daily evening newspaper." The Chronicle goes on to mention that Chelsea are looking for £10m if the sale is to be permanent, but it sounds like the Magpies are favoring the loan option.
Nouveau Château are rumored to be in the hunt for Bafetimbi Gomis as well, so any deal involving Ba will likely be dependent on whether they can capture Gomis, but if we do manage to essentially get back half of the transfer fee paid for the 28-year-old and get Newcastle (or whoever else) to pay all or most of his wages for next season, that'd be a very good deal for us as far as I'm concerned.