Dean Ashton slams Watford midfielder Tom Cleverley’s ‘ridiculous’ and ‘nonsense’ comments over Premier League return

Dean Ashton has expressed his disappointment at Tom Cleverley’s comments about returning to football.

The Watford midfielder is keen for Premier League matches to resume, despite club captain Troy Deeney refusing to train due to fears over the coronavirus pandemic.

Top-flight clubs were allowed to return to training in small groups last week, but Deeney stayed at home, while Hornets defender Adrian Mariappa self-isolated after testing positive for the virus.

And Cleverley insisted he felt safe during the first week of training.

He said: “We have to back ourselves as a squad. The odds, from where I'm standing, is that the season is going to go ahead. We are going to prepare for that.

“Even if it means playing without some of our best players, we have to back ourselves. We've got a great squad here and we're confident.

“I was one of the more comfortable ones with returning to training. I fully understand that everyone's circumstances are different and we took the decision as a squad to respect everyone's individual decisions.

“But I wanted to come in, see how phase one was going to work and, if anything, it has made me feel even more comfortable. It's well organised, it's safe.

“There are still questions to be answered about phase two and three but as far as phase one goes it's been fine.”

Cleverley's comments have not gone down well with former West Ham and England striker Ashton, who branded the remarks ‘ridiculous’ and ‘nonsense’.

He told talkSPORT’s Sunday Exclusive: “I just see that as the run-of-the-mill, football player coming out with just ridiculous, nonsense to questions they’ve been asked.

“That’s in terms of just coming out with the right things he thinks he should say that makes it sounds like, 'it’s so important that we get back to being in the right frame of mind' and 'we’ve got to stay up'.

“It’s just a ridiculous comment from a player, in my opinion anyway. It should just be about what’s right for everybody.

“If it’s not right for Troy, that’s fair enough. As far as he’s concerned, that’s okay.

“But to me, it just came across, like we’ve seen in so many interviews with players, they just come out with the things they think their own supporters want to hear.”

The Premier League’s ‘Project Restart’ proposal aims to resume top-flight football on June 12.