Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IVAN IS SETTING RIGHT TONEY
Three Lions call-up won’t be long in coming for my top gun, says Frank
THOMAS FRANK is adamant that Brentford striker Ivan Toney will be playing his way into England boss Gareth Southgate’s thoughts sooner rather than later.
Toney was top scorer in the Championship last season with 30 goals for the Bees.
And he has bagged two more in his first six Premier League appearances with some notable displays, particularly against Liverpool last week.
Frank understands why there was no call-up for Toney in Southgate’s squad to face Andorra and Hungary this month.
But he knows the 25-year-old will be knocking on the door before long. The Brentford boss said: “I don’t know if he’s unlucky to have missed out this time, there are a few other good strikers in the squad.
“He’s done well, but players must prove themselves over time and I’m 100 per cent sure he will.
“If he continues to improve and do well then I’m convinced Gareth will look at him at the right time and he will get his chance.
“Ivan’s mentality is that he has a massive belief in himself – and this season we had a fantastic pre-season and he came back in a good place and trained very hard.
“So he is in the best shape of his life, which also makes him even more able to press, link up
well, win a header on 85 minutes against Liverpool, get in the right
position.
“I saw a quote from him that only Virgil van Dijk could have stopped him in that position... and he was right.”
Barry Fry revealed last week that he offered Toney to West Ham, Brentford’s opponents today, for £10million – but it was Frank who snapped up the striker from League One’s Peterborough 13 months ago for half that amount, and reaped the rich rewards.
Frank added: “West Ham fans could say, ‘Why didn’t we do it?’... but they were a Premier League club and we were in the Championship.
“Would he have stepped directly in and played enough minutes for them, would he have been as good?
“Because he just stepped into our team and started, got the confidence, bam, bam, bam. So you never know. He might have done it at West Ham, and I back Ivan because he is a fantastic player, person and mentality.”
Toney’s strike partnership with Bryan Mbeumo is already causing Premier League defences big problems – and Frank is pleased with the way the Frenchman is settling into top-flight life too.
He said: “Bryan has done fantastically well and the relationship between the two and the combination of their different skill sets and strengths are a top fit.
“Bryan has a fantastic set of skills and I am convinced he will do very well.
“But he is only 22 and we need to let him perform a bit more before we are talking about the French squad.”