HAVING received an unexpected boost from Senegal’s poor showing at the African Cup of Nations, manager Alan Pardew is still in the dark about when Papiss Cissé will make his Newcastle United debut.

After losing their opening two matches in the competition, Sunday’s game against Libya will be Senegal’s last in this season’s competition.

Pardew is unclear as to whether that means £7.5m January signing Cissé and his new club-mate Demba Ba will be available for Wednesday’s Premier League trip to Blackburn Rovers.

“It’s not as simple as them playing at Blackburn,” Pardew revealed. “We have to contact Senegal and they might want the squad to fly back together or whatever. But we are pushing to get them back into Newcastle.

“I really don’t know what the chances are because it’s kind of over there. I really could not put a percentage on it.”

With Senegal one of the pre-tournament favourites and the third highest-ranked team to qualify, Pardew would not have been expecting to see Cissé or Ba until mid-February. Newcastle’s 15-goal top-scorer has already missed three games, as has holding midfielder Cheick Tioté, who plays for top-ranked Ivory Coast. Neither Newcastle man scored in Senegal’s defeats to Zambia and co-hosts Equatorial Guinea – although Cissé was only a substitute on the opening weekend, when Ba hit the woodwork from one of his crosses.

Twenty-six-year-old Cissé’s move from Freiburg was completed four days before the biennial competition kicked off. He was handed the famous number nine shirt left vacant since Andy Carroll’s £35m move to Liverpool almost a year earlier.

Ba – who played in the hole behind Cissé in a 4-2-3-1 formation on Wednesday – was in tremendous form before the tournament, scoring 16 goals in his previous 17 games for club and country.