‘Crazy’ Bees run sets the Toney
SHEFFIELD UNITED V BRISTOL CITY
BRENTFORD manager Thomas Frank says Ivan Toney is set to smash the 25-goal target set for him this season.
The striker, left, has scored 22 in 27 games after a £6million move from Peterborough.
That sensational tally has played a huge part in the Bees’ “crazy” 20-match unbeaten run in the Championship that will see them go top if they avoid defeat at Reading tonight.
After an agonising end to last season, when
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Frank’s men missed out twice on promotion – first via automatic and then losing the play-off final – they are now favourites to go up.
Frank said: “When we looked at Ivan we knew it is not easy to find a 25-goals-a-season striker for the Championship.
“But we could see the way he would fit and could do well for us, and he had a good chance of getting that 25 number. Now he already has 22 in
February.We expected him to do well but he has done even better than that.
“I have never been on an unbeaten run this long in football. It is crazy, and especially in a league like this where it is so competitive and so even. It’s not like Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga.
“Our status as favourites for promotion reflects how good we have been playing. But I sense no arrogance from the players.”
LYS MOUSSET has been told by Chris Wilder it is time to deliver for Sheffield United because he owes them.
Wilder has been disappointed by Mousset’s attitude and the 25-year-old’s £270,000 Lamborghini Aventador was involved in an early-morning crash with two parked cars last month.
The £10million French striker, who has not scored since July, has spent more time in the treatment room than on the pitch this season.
And with Mousset finally fit again, Wilder said: “I think he understands it is coming to a point in his career where it can go one way or another. There has to be a big push by the player now to participate, to add something that we know he’s got.
“He understands our feelings and I’m not chucking him under the bus, but there are certain things he can control and he make choices on. There have obviously been a couple of high-profile bits and pieces recently that I have – and him – been disappointed about.
“He has to knuckle down and produce because I think he owes the football club. At his best, he is an asset for us, but he needs to help himself as well.”
The Blades face Bristol City in the FA Cup fifth round tonight with defender Kean Bryan, above, recalling how he got a leg up from Patrick Vieira.
Bryan belatedly made his Premier League debut three months ago with Sheffield United at 24 and enjoyed his best moment when he scored in the Blades’ historic win at Manchester United two weeks ago.
Vieira was his coach at Manchester City’s EDS development squad, and Bryan, who was at the club for just over a decade until 2018, said: “Patrick made me captain of the EDS side at a young age and put a lot of belief in me. He helped me on and off the pitch.”