Premier League outfit Aston Villa have lost over 30k likes on Instagram in the last 24 hours after the club confirmed striker Mbwana Samatta joined Turkish Super Lig side Fenerbahce.
The Taifa Stars captain moved to Istanbul having joined the Villans for £8.5million from Belgian top-flight side Genk, however, he failed to make the desired impact in England, scoring just twice in 16 appearances.
The arrival of Ollie Watkins and Burkina Faso international Bertrand Traore meant Samatta was surplus to requirements in Dean Smith’s squad, hence, he was loaned to the Turkish Super Lig outfit.
Immediately after the transfer was announced, Tanzanians descended on the Villa Instagram page to unfollow it, with most of them saying they are now heading to Turkey with “our son.”
By Friday evening, the page which had over 1095k likes had dropped significantly with the number standing at 880k likes on Saturday morning.
“It is that time to leave this page, bye-bye,” wrote Sam Chaupole, while Amiz Biz said: “We are leaving the page now and we ask for forgiveness as your page is going to have reduced numbers.”
Ninja Damour wrote: “Let us unfollow this page, and this club, we are now boarding to Turkey, we should follow our son.”
The 27-year-old Caf Champions League winner will now have to stay with the Yellow Canaries for the 2020-21 campaign with the move to be made permanent after the end of the season.
In a recent interview, Samatta’s father, Mzee, was confident his son was not interested in leaving the English-based outfit.
“I have talked to my son [Mbwana] Samatta and he has told me it is not true Aston Villa have asked him to leave or they want to part ways with him,” he told Azam TV .
“My son told me, all those reports are lies, he is not going anywhere, 'I am at Aston Villa unless things change later, but for now I want you as my dad to know that, I am still an Aston Villa player'.”
West Brom had also shown interest in the striker but the Turkish giants beat them to the deal.
Samatta is, however, unlikely to make his debut when Fenerbahce take on eternal rivals Galatasaray in a Super Lig cracker on Sunday.