TONEY LEADS WAY AS BEES MARCH ON
IVAN TONEY delivered a perfect captain’s performance to send Brentford buzzing all the way to the quarter-finals.
Toney was handed the armband for the night and he scored one and made one.
Thomas Frank made eight changes and as they enjoy life in the Premier League, the West Londoners are finding the Carabao Cup is pretty good too.
Toney almost put them in front inside the opening two minutes but his volley on the stretch from Saman Ghoddos’ cross was just beyond the far post.
The top-flight outfit remained on the front foot and Marcus Forss should have scored from ten yards but he shot wide of the mark.
Then Sergi Canos brought a sharp save out of Joe Bursik as they continued to press and it brought its reward.
The resulting corner was tapped back by Toney to Canos and the Spaniard drove it home low and hard from the edge of the box.
The Potters finally made it into Brentford’s area and Alvaro Fernandez had to push behind Steven Fletcher’s shot at his near post.
But it was an isolated attack as the Bees underlined their superiority with a second goal five ■ 1 2 minutes before the break.
Stoke lost the ball from a throw-in inside their own half and two passes later, it was worked through to Toney and he gave Bursik no chance at his near post for his first goal in five games.
Toney almost had another just after the restart but his volley was kept out by Bursik, with Mathias Jensen steering the rebound wide of the post.
Yet the hosts halved the deficit when a corner reached Romaine Sawyers on the edge of the area and his lovely half-volley gave Fernandez no chance.
Substitute Abdallah Sima almost grabbed an equaliser with a late header but Frank’s men saw the game out to book their spot in the last eight.
STOKE (3-5-2): Bursik 6; Ostigard 6 (Brown 82), Souttar 6, Wilmot 6; Duhaney 6, Sawyers 7, J Thompson 6 (Ince 82), Doughty 5 (Vrancic 56, 4), Tymon 6; Fletcher 6 (Surridge 63, 4), Campbell 5 (Sima 63, 5).
BRENTFORD (3-5-2): Fernandez 6; Ajer 7, Goode 6, Jorgensen 6; Roerslev 6, Ghoddos 7, Bidstrup 6 (Norgaard 62, 4), Jensen 7 (Onyeka 72, 4), Canos 7 (Henry 72, 4); Forss (Fosu-henry 72, 4), TONEY 8.
REFEREE: Michael Salisbury 6.