Peterborough have benefited massively from Ivan Toney’s success, with Brentford labelled ‘magnificent’ in dealing with England’s latest star.
Toney was named in Gareth Southgate’s England squadfor the matches against Germany and Italy. This marks a fairy-tale ascent to potential World Cup places from League Two.
The striker is now 27 It was a long journey to get there., only recently grabbing the nation’s attention when he broke the Championship scoring record to lead Brentford to the Premier League for the first time in 2021.
Toney, who was 16 years old when he was signed by Newcastle in 2015, was loaned to six sides before he was sold to Peterborough. He settled down and started his career. Banging in goalsLeague One
That ultimately led to move to Brentford for an initial £5million, but as The Posh’s director of football, Barry Fry, told talkSPORT, he masterminded another £5m in add ons.
“It’s fair to say I put a lot of clauses in that,” he said with a giggle.
“I must say, Brentford have been absolutely fantastic, they’ve paid us on the dot for every one, in fact, when they got promotion they paid us early so they’ve been magnificent.
“They’ve been a different class Brentford with us, and with Ivan, they brought him on and he’s done just what he did with little old Peterborough, he’s done it with Brentford in the Championship and in the Premier League and nobody Needs an England call up mehr than him because he’s worked very very hard at his game.
“I watched him first as a 16-year-old boy playing for Northampton and he played against our youth team and we did try to buy him for £200,000.
“Graham Carr who developed all the players and was director of football at Newcastle at the time felt sorry for his old club Northampton and paid £250,000 up front.
“But going to Newcastle was a disaster because they never gave him a chance, they loaned him out to six different clubs, he always had a bag packed to go where they wanted him to go.
“He didn’t feel like he belonged so when we came in and bought him four years ago I said come back home, you need a bit of stability, you need a bit of love, and we’re the club to give it to you.”
Former Championship striker Aaron Mclean also spoke to talkSPORT about Toney’s England call up, having coached him at Peterborough.
Mclean said: “He got the move to Newcaslte and that didn’t work out, then he had to go and have five or six different loans to different clubs and they were all very different.
“None of those clubs you could say he went and absolutely set the world alight, so he’s had to do it the long way round.
“To get to this point now hasn’t been an easy road, even though to many people they’ve only just heard the name Ivan Toney so it almost looks like he’s just burst onto the scene.
“Having coached him and personally as well, for what he’s achieved in such a short space of time is nothing short of remarkable.
“When he left Peterborough to go to Brentford you hoped that he’s be able to kick on and help a club that was aiming to get into the Premier League, you’d hope that he’d be able to hit the ground running.
“His performances, the amount of goals that he’s scored has not only done that, but it’s now propelled him to the elite level where he’s being introduced into the national team and could potentially find himself playing in the World Cup.”
