Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster is dead against plans to pipe-in crowd noise for the Premier League restart.

The Hornets trialled the gimmick – which will be offered to viewers watching live on TV to enhance the atmosphere - in two practice matches.

Foster revealed they even made it sound as life-like as possible by playing a familiar chorus of disapproval, as a premeditated joke, over the public address system: “The referee's a w****r."

He continued: “It really annoyed me. You can only play it at certain times, like when the ball goes out, when it would just come on and be really annoying.

“Everybody agreed we'd rather not have it. We had one of the coaches refereeing and he was the worst referee ever, so they started playing 'The referee's a w****r.'

“Nobody knew it was coming. Even he was laughing."