Toney double keeps the Bees flying high

The extension of Ivan Toney’s stunning scoring sequence made Brentford’s visit to hillsborough a ton of fun for Thomas Frank.

Toney struck twice to take his tally to seven goals in his last four Championship appearances and mark manager Frank’s 100th game in charge with a victory that propelled his team to within a point of the top six.

It is a totally different situation for Sheffield Wednesday, who have made light of their 12-point handicap at the start of this season for breaking spending rules and showed no inferiority complex in the opening exchanges against last season’s beaten play-off finalists.

But they found themselves behind at the interval, however, courtesy of two brilliant finishes from Ivan Toney, the £5million replacement for Ollie Watkins now at Aston Villa.

Toney (right), the leading scorer in League One last season with Peterborough, was the first to react when Cameron Dawson could only parry henrik Dalsgaard’s low drive, beating the offside trap to steer home.

And he took advantage of a physical mismatch with Moses Odubajo at the near post to head home Vitaly Janelt’s corner on the half-hour. That restored the visitors’ advantage just five minutes after Callum Paterson had stooped to head in an equaliser, his first since a recent switch from Cardiff. There was a distinct drop in quality during the second half but Brentford’s third win of the season would have been by a larger margin had Toney, 24, made a cleaner contact on substitute Sergi Canos’ cross. Wednesday have now won just once in 15 home league fixtures stretching back to 2019 but showed enough endeavour to suggest that their points total could be in credit by the end of the month, with three matches left and a four-point deficit to make up.