Arnesen watches Ashton

Tottenham are monitoring the progress of Championship top scorer Dean Ashton.

The Crewe Alexandra youngster has attracted interest from The Premiership throughout his career, since making his debut as a 16-year-old.

Ashton regularly has scouts from the top flight flocking to Gresty Road and there were again a plethora of Premiership representatives for Tuesday's clash with Millwall.

But in addition to the scouts, Spurs sporting director Frank Arnesen made a personal check on the 21-year-old.

Arnesen would have been impressed by the England Under-21 international's performance as the powerful hit-man opened the scoring against The Lions after just 12 seconds.

It was Ashton's sixth goal in five games and he currently tops the Championship scoring charts with 13 for the campaign.

Everton and Manchester City are also thought to be leading suitors of Ashton, with Crewe boss Dario Gradi never one to stand in the way of his players progressing to the top flight.

His physical presence would provide the White Hart Lane outfit with a different option in attack but Spurs are more likely to bide their time until the summer to see if Ashton can maintain his form through the season.

That is a point made by Gradi, who wants Ashton to wait until the end of the campaign before making any decisions on his future.

"We'd like to keep him here," Gradi told Sky Sports News.

"I've said to Dean that the time to think about going would perhaps be in the summer, when he's got a year left on his contract.

"That might be the time to consider the options but obviously if a big club came in for him and the idea's right that he's going to play in the team, and the money was decent, obviously we'd talk to him about it.

"That hasn't happened and I'm not particularly expecting it to happen and we'll deal with it if it does."