Dean Ashton on Yaya Toure: ‘I’d do ANYTHING to have one more game’

Football News – Dean Ashton has blasted Yaya Toure’s behaviour as his Manchester City exile continues.

Toure has been left out in the cold since September after his agent, Dimitri Seluk, publicly criticised City manager Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola says he will pick the 33-year-old again if he apologises for Seluk’s conduct, but the Ivorian has so far yet to do so.

And seeing Toure apparently happy to sit on the sidelines picking up his reported £220,000-a-week wages has angered Ashton.

The former Norwich and West Ham striker was forced to cut his football career short at the age of 26 due to injury and says he would give ‘anything’ to play just one more game.

Speaking as a co-host on the Jim White show, Ashton said of Toure’s situation: “It is totally ridiculous. I can’t get my head around it.

“He [Toure] is basically saying, ‘well, you have left me out of your squad so I am going to spit my dummy out, if you aren’t going to play me I am on x amount, I will sit here and wait for you to sell me’.

“If he really wanted to play, surely he would tell his agent: ‘keep your mouth shut, I will apologise, even if I don’t mean it, so I can play’.

“Some players aren’t that bothered. That’s how it comes across [with Toure]. Otherwise surely he would apologise and play.

“I’d do anything to have one more game – anything whatsoever. So it annoys me when I see these things.”

Tony Cascarino, the former Chelsea star turned expert pundit, was alongside Ashton in the studio on the Jim White show.

And, just like his fellow co-host, Cascarino has no sympathy for Toure’s plight.

He said: “You should be saying to your agent: ‘don’t make comments about the manager, let me prove the manager wrong, let me show him I am worthy of a place in the team’.

“Forget the agent, he is irrelevant – Yaya can sort it out.

“The agent is absolutely nothing in this because Yaya could go and say to Pep: ‘I’m sorry, my agent shouldn’t have said what he did. I have had words with him, I want to play for you and I think I can still do a job for you. If you want me, I am ready for you’.

“I’ve been told by a manager: ‘you will never play for me again’. Six weeks later I’m playing in the semi-final of the FA Cup. I dug in and worked hard.

“You keep going. I owed it to the club and myself to be a pro and say: ‘do you know what, yes I’m not in the team but if they do go through a bad run, I am ready’.”

Category: Football