FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Championship - Hull City v Burnley - MKM Stadium, Hull, Britain - March 15, 2023 Burnley's Nathan Tella celebrates scoring their second goal Action Images/Craig Brough/File Photo
SOUTHAMPTON, England (Reuters) - Coveted striker Nathan Tella seemed only to be thinking about his Southampton future on Wednesday, while a bizarre campaign to reunite him with Burnley continued on social media.
While on loan, the 24-year-old winger led Burnley to Premier League promotion last season with a club-high 17 league goals. His parent club Southampton went the other way, dropping into the second-tier Championship at the end of a dismal campaign.
Tella is now back at Saints but Burnley want him back, with chairman Alan Pace reposting a "Free Nathan Tella" video his daughter had posted on Instagram.
The video, set against a soundtrack of The Specials’ Free Nelson Mandela song, begins with text reading "Free Nathan Tella" before showing Pace's daughter pinning several posters surrounding the club's stadium.
The posters show a picture of Tella with the words: “Missing! Last seen smiling – Burnley. Responds to ‘Nathan Tella baby’. Have you seen him?”.
The video ends with the caption: “Come Home Tella”.
But on Wednesday Tella -- who has featured in pre-season for Saints -- looked very much at home and was focusing on his south coast future, and the club's opening match of the new campaign this Friday at Sheffield Wednesday.
"It (will be) good for the fans to obviously see everything we've worked on in pre-season coming into play for the first game, and it sets the tempo for how we want to be the whole season," Tella said at the club's media day.
The player's future is not set in stone yet, though. Burnley have until Sept. 1 to persuade Southampton to part with him.
(Reporting by: Ossian Shine; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
