With the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United being linked with the former Manchester City centre-forward, it's emerged there's several escape clauses in Delap's Ipswich deal.
“What I would say is that what's been reported is never quite fact,” Ashton insisted to the EADT. “It would be remiss of me to speak about any individual player, you know I'm going to say that.
“What I can say is that in January there were was interest in a number of our players from a number of Premier League clubs.
“But the ownership were great. It was ‘you don't have to sell’. So look, we're not an easy club to buy from, because we have such strong ownership.
“Obviously there is always natural point in time when a player has to move. That's the cycle of life, it's the cycle of football. But we are very, very, very well protected with all of that.”
On claims of City holding a buy-back option, Ashton also said: “No. Look, it would be remiss of me to do that. I would actually be in breach of contract for talking in any kind of detail.
“All I would say to the fans is that hopefully an element of trust has been built with us since we took over. We know what we're doing and we're well, well protected.”