Watford Captain Troy Deeney has praised Liverpool's Jordan Henderson for the work he did in setting up the Players Together fund, which is helping supply money to the NHS to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Hornets' skipper said the fund had taken a lot of work and discussion to get to where it is now and a lot of that was done by the Liverpool skipper, working with his team-mate James Milner.

Deeney is one of four administers of the fund alongside Henderson, Manchester United's Harry Maguire and West Ham's Mark Noble, but said every one of the league's captains has been in close contact throughout the process and that the fund is an example of the positive contribution football can have on a community.

"It's been in the pipeline for a long time in terms of talking," Deeney said in an interview with Match of the Day X.

"And then you're talking about getting every player from every Premier League team all on the same page, so it took a lot of work in between the captains and the players, but massive shout out to Jordan Henderson, he's done a lot of groundwork, him and James Milner.

"We've got a WhatsApp group with all the captains, so it's just a case of talking, 'what do you think about this? What do you think about that?' and it's everyone's input. We've all raised a huge sum of money and it's hopefully all going to the right people as well. It shines a good light on what football is really all about."

Deeney was irked by comments made by health secretary Matt Hancock, who suggested the players were not doing enough to help, despite them being high earners.

The striker questioned the point of the secretary of state's comments and said that the players' contributions were not being discussed fairly.

When asked if the criticism annoyed him, Deeney responded, "Of course it does. We as footballers are used to taking stick. The stereotype is we're dumb, we make a lot of money and we just kick a ball around, we don't really work very hard. I think the numbers need to be spoken about fairly. Especially when they're talking about it, the politicians.

"I think I would like to ask the politician who said it, why in an address to the nation when you're supposed to be telling people what's going on with the virus, it somehow went to 'footballers need to do more'. I don't know where that aspect came from, but I'll leave it at that."