'You let them down': Tony Cascarino takes aim at Newcastle United player

Fraser joined Newcastle United as a free agent this month after his deal at the Vitality Stadium expired.

The winger, controversially, didn’t sign a short-term contract extension to enable him to play when the Premier League restarted in June following a three-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic – and the club was relegated.

Fraser spoke about the decision in an interview with the Gazette after signing a five-year contract at St James’s Park.

"I never wanted it to end like that, from what we went through from start to finish,” said the 26-year-old, who is pushing for a start against Tottenham Hotspur tomorrow.

“No-one saw that this virus would come. If this virus didn’t come, I would have played every game under my contract.

“Everyone’s got their opinions. I respect everyone’s opinion, good or bad. I wasn’t under contract, so I didn’t feel like I should play the games … (in case) I get an injury.

"Obviously, I wanted to help the team. I didn’t want them to go down. I feel like if I’d played, without sounding big-headed or big time, I like to think I would kept us up, which hurts even more.”

Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan labelled Fraser a “turd” on talkSPORT for his refusing to sign a contract extension at Bournemouth, and Cascarino has launched an attack of his own on Fraser on the radio station.

"The risk of getting a very serious injury is very, very low risk,” said the former Chelsea striker. “It can happen, but it’s ifs and maybes in life. Things can happen.

“When players start throwing out the old ‘do you know what, that terrible injury that I might have got’, that’s really half empty the glass. To me, it’s ‘you could have played, you could have been the player who kept them up’.

"You could have been a hero and left, and shared all the experiences of being in the trenches with your team-mates, your colleagues who you shared so much with. You let them down.

“It’s not just about him. You could have kept Bournemouth up, and that really frustrates me about that mentality.”