Back in the summer Burnley tried to sign Nathan Tella on a permanent deal but refused to offer anywhere near the Saints asking price and indeed the £23 million that he eventually joined Bayer Leverkusen for, now the Lancashire club are set to get revenge on what they saw as Southampton demanding an unfair price.

The transfer saga between Burnley was surreal to say the least back in the summer, Nathan Tella was obviously open to joining the newly promoted Premier League club with whom he had spent 2022/23 season on loan, but Burnley were not willing to pay anywhere near the asking price being asked.

Saints wanted around £17 million for Tella, but with a week to go to the start of the Championship season, Burnley had still not got over £9 million on the table.

Then it took a bizarre twist as we at The Ugly Inside reported in ourFree Nathan Tella story on July 31st.

In simple terms the daughter of Burnley chairman Alan Pace went to extreme lengths to try and get Tella to Burnley.

A video emerged on Ashlyn Pace-Ferguson's TikTok account on entitled 'Free Nathan Tella' and she then stuck 'Missing' posters around the town of Burnley with Tella emblazoned on them.

It was all rather ironic that Pace and his daughter should demand something for free, as the American did just that when he bought Burnley, as reported in The Guardian at the time, Alan Pace and his ALK Capital group bought Burnley in controversial fashion.

It was described as a Leveraged buy out, where the club is bought and then quickly in simple terms re-mortgage their money against the club and it's assets to repay them part or all of their investment.

Not so much as Free Tella, but Free Burnley, who suddenly went from being a club with no debt, to one loaded with it and more to the point the interest is owned & paid by the club itself and not the owner.

Saints stood firm and eventually got a figure of around £23 million from Bayer Leverkusen for Tella, perhaps more than they expected. Tella for his part was the model professional and played for Saints in their opening games in the Championship and also scored.

But it seems that Burnley hold a grudge and it's pay back now as Saints look so take Manuel Benson from the Lancashire club on loan, The Burnley Express are reporting that there is no chance of Benson joining Southampton, they clearly have insider knowledge and say that after Saints turned down Burnley's offer, relations soured between the two clubs now Burnley are going to get their revenge.

This is all a little sad that those running a football club hold a grudge when they clearly were trying to take advantage of Southampton in the summer after the relegation, they seemed to expect us to give them Tella for peanuts, probably assuming that we would be desperate for the money.

When we didn't play game they got funny and now it seems that the spat is going to get worse.

Photo: Action Images

Centurion added 21:53 - Jan 1 Now now children...
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SaintPaulVW added 22:12 - Jan 1 Suspect it's like this between lots of clubs. Always going to be some people you can easily deal with and some you avoid having anything to do with. Reasons maybe based on sensible or minor justifications. This one, if true, appears to be at the more petty end of the spectrum.
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TimSaint added 00:38 - Jan 2 Ridiculously low offer for Tella - proved to be low, by the amount we eventually sold him for !! With so many ex-Saints in their squad, you'd think they'd be thanking us and keeping relations sweet. Cork, JRod, Redmond and Obafemi FFS !!
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JoeEgg added 08:03 - Jan 2 "Tella for his part was the model professional and played for Saints in their opening games in the Championship and also scored." So Tella had a future with Saints? No, we had so many free scoring strikers that apparently we didn't need him. He had successfully scored goals regularly for Burnley in the Championship but he was considered surplus to requirements here!!! Or the grass was greener elsewhere Bring in Danny Ings - another 'model professional'!!

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DellBoyWally added 08:33 - Jan 2 Tella isn't doing too well in Germany!! Burnley should be thankful we saved them from a boo boo!! Shame though, I liked him.
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Frank_Xerox added 08:50 - Jan 2 I find it hard to believe that the daughter of a football club's American owner would behave in such an entitled way! Strange behaviour from Burnley, who seemed to both underestimate our financial position and forget that we'd lent Nathan Tella to them in the first place. He played an important role in their promotion, so you'd think they might even have been a little grateful to us. Instead they thought it was an opportunity to squeeze us because they thought we were broke. Embarrassing.

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underweststand added 09:20 - Jan 2 Burnley - never a club to enjoy spending money - only have themselves to blame after having Tella on loan (and doubtless low wages) whilst the lad ended up as their top scorer. So why was only 16 million too much for them to fork out ?. No reason to think that he wouldn't have continued to score for them in a virtually unchanged squad, but now see that they need a quick solution in order to avoid a quick return to the Championship. They haven't yet learned that you can't survive in the Prem. - on the cheap. Tella (for his part) seems to be a square peg in the German side, and rarely gets off the bench. If they feel he was a wrong buy, then maybe they could loan him back to Burnley, where at least he'd be welcomed by the Chairman's daughter.

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Bowlercow added 12:29 - Jan 2 I can't believe Burnley didn't bust the bank to keep Tella and Harwood Bellis who are streets better than what they have
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UgandaSaint added 20:43 - Jan 2 Hull Daily Mail has reported that a loan deal for Benson has been verbally agreed.
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NewburySaint added 15:36 - Jan 4 I’m not sure we’re that desperate that we need to be shopping at Burnley, loan or otherwise!
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