Java: Basic Movement AI not working

I am working on a basic AI system to get an entity to follow a player. I created both the player and the ghost entity, but it seems as if the ghost only wants to increment both x and y, it never wants to do the opposite, or choose only x or y to use. Here is where I implemented the ghost and player in my constructor:

public MansionAzazel() {
    ...
    TileCoordinate ghostSpawn = new TileCoordinate(52, 50);
    TileCoordinate playerSpawn = new TileCoordinate(54, 52);
    player = new Player(playerSpawn.x(), playerSpawn.y(), key);
    player.init(level);
    ghost = new Ghost(ghostSpawn.x(), ghostSpawn.y(), player);
    ghost.init(level);
    ...
}

Here is the update() function for the ghost:

public void update() {
    int xa = 0, ya = 0;
    if (anim < 1000000)
        anim++;
    else
        anim = 0;

    if (player.getX() > xa)
        xa++;
    if (player.getX() < xa)
        xa--;
    if (player.getY() > ya)
        ya++;
    if (player.getY() < ya)
        ya--;

    if (xa != 0 || ya != 0) {
        move(xa, ya);
        walking = true;
    } else
        walking = false;
}

In which to sum it all up, the ghost entity will only and always move in one direction because the coordinates are 0 and I don't know why.