Watford captain, Troy Deeney has revealed that people prayed for his son to contract COVID-19 after he stated that he will not be returning to training.

Deeney recently expressed fears over the decision to restart the English Premier League amid COVID-19 pandemic.

All 20 clubs in the league took a major decision on Wednesday to restart contact training ahead of resumption.

“I saw some comments in regards to my son, people saying: ‘I hope your son gets coronavirus’,” the 32-year-old told CNN Sport.

“That is the hard part for me. If you respond to that, people then go: ‘Ah, we have got him’, and they keep doing it.

“In a time where it is all about mental health and everyone says ‘speak up, speak out, please speak’, Danny Rose spoke out, and I spoke out, and we get hammered and battered for it.

“So people see that and go ‘woah’, and it’s not just us that gets it, the missus gets direct messages, and you’ll be walking down the street, and people will be like: ‘Oh, I am at work, you go back to work.”