Watford goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann described the online abuse he received as “not nice” and unacceptable and is advising young players to stay off social media.

The Austrian international signed a new five-year contract last month and was appointed club captain by head coach Valerien Ismael.

The announcement was always going to provoke a reaction among fans, but some went too far and took to their keyboards to direct personal abuse at the 29-year-old.

Bachmann was asked about it at last night’s At Our Place fan's event and spoke calmly and thoughtfully about his experience, while expressing an almost resigned sense of frustration that more is not being done to combat it.

He said: “Social media is part of not just football or sport but of life. It’s a massive part of life for most people. For athletes it’s toxic but also for normal people it’s toxic. There’s not just athletes getting attacked – obviously we get it more because we’re in the public eye – but there’s a lot of online bullying.

“I was talking to Luther (Blissett) about the whole situation with me a couple of weeks ago and I said it doesn’t really bother me, then I said well, I’m saying it don’t really bother me but nobody likes to read stuff like that on the internet, especially my wife and my parents, it’s not nice.

“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion and if people want to call me s**t and what not, I don’t care about that, but when it gets personal it’s just unnecessary, not so much for me but for my family because they read it as well and they’re the ones that are hurt more than me. I can deal with it but for them it’s not nice.

“Unfortunately it’s part of the game. I don’t think you can erase it. The platforms are obviously not doing enough because it’s been going on for multiple years now and nothing’s really changing, it’s getting worse if anything where there’s racism, and it's about sexuality. In my case none of these two things are involved and I’m still getting abused.

“We’re incredibly privileged to be in the position we’re in. It’s probably easy for people to say ‘well, yeah, he doesn’t care about that abuse, he gets paid so much money and he plays football’.

“We know how privileged we are. I certainly know how lucky I am to be in the position I’m in. Having said that, I worked extremely hard to get where I am but I know how lucky I am to play football and get paid for it. It’s a dream come true, but even though it’s a part of this whole thing it’s not nice.”

Asked what advice he would give younger players, Bachmann responded: “My advice is don’t have social media. It’s not going to happen because like I said before the young lads sit in the dressing room on Instagram, TikTok all day. It’s just part of life, they obviously enjoy it and they don’t really get that criticism yet but that would be my best advice. Stay off social media, it doesn’t enhance your life so it’s not worth it.”