TROY DEENEY has slammed Twitter for only addressing racist abuse towards footballers once the “big guys” have been targeted.

The Silicon Valley service claims it has dealt with “more than 700 examples of hateful conduct” in the past fortnight after Paul Pogba and Tammy Abraham were abused and has announced a crackdown.

Watford striker Deeney, 31, has not been impressed with the social platform’s efforts to address bigotry in the past.

And at one point he turned off his notifications so that he did not say something he regretted to odious abusers.

It took Manchester United star Pogba and Chelsea ace Abraham being targeted for Twitter to release the statement.

He told SunSport: “It takes that to shed the light on it but that’s the frustration.

“Why does it have to be the big guys?

“It could be anyone, unless you play for the big clubs, unless you’re high profile that’s when they take it seriously.

“I didn’t see the statement, but when I hear things like ‘trying’, interesting they’re ‘trying’.

“It’s not difficult to do and to identify what is and what isn’t. Let’s see, I’m not optimistic but let’s see.

“The big boys are involved now like your Man Uniteds and things like that so that then makes them a bit more proactive, so let’s see.

“Any help is a good help, but I’m at that point now where it’s been going on for so long that why would now be any different?

“I did (turned Twitter notifications off) at one point but I turned it back on, I’m not letting them win.”

The 6ft forward is wary of letting his young family see him saying something out of turn.

Speaking at the NFL Kickoff Party, Deeney spoke of temporarily taking himself away from social media: “I just had to do it because I would have said something stupid.

“It’s more of a personal barrier to stop myself and also I think there’s a huge responsibility to.