Bermuda international Ne-Jai Tucker has joined Workington Town on loan.

Tucker, 23, has joined the club that plays in the Northern Premier Division, the seventh tier of English football, for an initial month.

The midfielder, who is likely to make his debut for Workington away at Cleethorpes on Saturday, joined parent club Southport last summer.

Tucker has been a mainstay for Bermuda during their recent World Cup qualifying campaign and was nominated by coach Michael Findlay as the island’s best player after scoring in their 2-2 draw away at Trinidad & Tobago in November.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette after that game, Findlay said that Tucker has been identified as a key player for the Gombey Warriors.

“I thought Ne-Jai was the player of the game by a long shot,” Findlay said. “We’ve been working with him on where we feel he’s best and one of the things we noticed is that he can be much more influential higher up the pitch.

“He likes the ball and he doesn’t just create things with it. He dictates tempo, which we want to do given that we are trying to be a football-first team.

“We're also working with him out of possession, as we need players who can be effective when we have the ball but also when we don’t, especially at the level we’re playing at because the transitional moments are so dramatic and can be so damaging.

“We’ve been asking him to do that and he showed not just his ability but the potential to be a very key figure for us.”

In July 2021 Tucker signed his first professional contract with Burnley and two months later scored his first goal for the under-23 team in Premier League 2 against Southampton at St Mary’s.

Tucker’s contract was due to expire at the end of that season, but Burnley announced they had activated the option for a further year in June 2022.

He was personally namechecked by new Burnley manager Vincent Kompany as a youngster that had impressed him during preseason training in July 2022. However, he was released by Burnley at the end of the 2022–23 season.