#nufc Papiss Cisse in L'Equipe.
I was surprised by the Newcastle move as initially I was meant to be going to Bayern. In the end it didn't happen. In England, Sunderland and Fulham wanted me. Then at the last minute my agent told me when I was in Senegal 'I've booked a flight to Paris then Newcastle, if all goes well you'll sign there.' The next day I was there. By five I'd finished the medical and by eight I'd signed. As I was going to AFCON, Pardew had prepared a DVD for me which I watched every evening in my hotel room.
I didn't choose to wear 9. I turned up and saw my name on the shirt. The coach told me he'd chosen it for me, Pardew told me 'it's a big number, we don't just give it to anybody'. For me, coming from nowhere, to get the shirt. He put a lot of pressure on me! I'm trying to prove he did the right thing.
It's the Newcastle style more than the Premier League that suits me. There are lots of French players here. Ben Arfa pleases everybody wide, Yohan Cabaye feeds me extraordinary passes. And then there's Demba Ba who spoke to me a lot about the club during the AFCON. I say to myself that what I'm in the midst of achieving is out of the ordinary. But I say to myself every morning, 'you saw what you did last weekend. You need to do even more to help the team win.'
Ben Arfa is extraordinary. He's a phenomenon. When I see his runs, his tricks, his acceleration with the ball at his feet, he reminds me a bit of Messi. That's what his goal against Bolton was like, exactly that. If I had a message for Laurent Blanc it would be: 'Please call up Ben Arfa. You won't regret it.'
