[NOT HAPPENING] Ivan Toney

I think they'll get a striker included in the deal should Kane leave. Abraham/Werner + cash if he goes to Chelsea (though it looks like they'll go for Lukaku instead), Martial + cash if he goes to United, Jesus + cash (or even Jesus + Sterling per the Sun today) if he goes to City. Will be hard for Levy to get a quality striker in for a decent price when sellers know that it's a replacement for 100m+ Kane, and United/City/Chelsea will have to make space for Kane. I think Toney is a good player, but he isn't ever going to be Kane's level and spunking half the Kane money on him is not money well-spent.

 

Either way, if Toney does manage ten goals (from open play), that's a pretty bloody respectable/successful season in the Prem to be honest, particularly for a debutant from the lower reaches of the pyramid.

What I did find slightly odd was the fact that for various reasons I listened to Toney interviewed in the aftermath of the playoff final by more than one broadcaster, and the amount of times he referenced 'people' criticising him by saying he only scored penalties and tap-ins and, either that he was happy to score in the final (from a penalty...) because it would 'shut some people up', or that he wished his insane 30-yard belter that just bounced out off the crossbar had gone in so that it would have 'shut some people up' was pathetic, and slightly hard to believe.

It was positively Troy-esque, and I was genuinely surprised that a player who had just had a season like that culminating in promotion to the Premier League mere minutes beforehand; equalling the league's all-time goal-record and announcing himself to the footballing world to the point talk***** pundits were swearing blind after the game he would be playing for England by the end of next season, was so incredibly concerned by what the mob have supposedly been saying about the type of goals he scores on Twitter.

I don't think it necessarily speaks incredibly to his mentality, and it was that that saw him have to drop down the divisions so far initially before getting his chance, as well as being the key aspect the coach who finally deployed him successfully in League Two had to work out how to manage to get him to start playing to his potential.

 

They are defensively poor. You won’t convince me otherwise.

Stats are great, I love them, use them, talk about, but they are not 100% gospel.

The championship is an entertaining league, I love it, but we got promoted for being rubbish most of the season. Brentford went on a 21 game unbeaten run and still didn’t finish second. Why, because their defence let them down. They got nervous nearly every time they were only winning by a goal with 10mins to go. This brought panic and defensively they made mistakes. It wasn’t all Raya. Brentford won’t get away with half of what they got away with this season. Just like we won’t. I fully expect Ekong to go down as a top assister for the opposition this season, unless he cuts out his ridiculous passes across the backline.

 

Okay fair enough my source was wrong. However, I am not having it that Brentford have the best defence in the league, I have seen them play enough to know that their back line is dodgy. XG is not necessarily the best way to measure the quality of a defence because Opta tracks ball actions, not player locations. Opta also doesn't count non shot chances. Therefore, when Brentford's defence are scrambling and are all over the place like they frequently are when the opposition put a cross into their box this don't count. Next season the crosses will be better as will the strikers attacking those crosses

 

We’ll have to agree to disagree. They’re defensively excellent to me, second behind us. I also think they’ll finish above us this season, but that’s a debate for a different day

 

I didn’t say they have the best defence in the league, I said they have the lowest xGA - there’s a big difference between the two. xG/xGA to me is a good performance metric over a period of time. If Brentford continue to defend in the style they do, they *should* be fine - they just need to upgrade the defence. WTE is fine defensively, he’s just being asked to do things he’s not capable of, that’s a coaching issue rather than a player issue. Xisco needs to adapt, or tell Gino he wants a ball playing centre back

 

Agreed.

Yeah too early to call that yet with the window open. Never understand why people start predicting tables now.

 

Yes but Watkins, the last Brentford striker sold last year managed it and nearly made the England squad

 

No, but you can predict what type of window a club is likely to have and therefore predict whether they’ll finish above or below you.

 

For 40-50m they'd probably wait to see how he steps up. Even if he gets 12 goals for Brentford, his ceiling won't be much higher than that.

 

Good. Levy's a greedy barsteward, so hopefully whoever comes in fails miserably.

 

He would go for £30 million, probably even less. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

 

I still don't think it's a massive indication of how solid a team are defensively. Brentford are all over place at times at the back. They certainly have not looked solid when I watched them, especially towards the end of the season. They look very panicky at times when under pressure. If they defend like that next season then they will concede plenty of goals against better players.

I do agree about WTE.

 

Toney looked tired come the end of the season and his performances dropped off a little, which is understandable. He will get goals but nowhere near the same level.

But all of the teams promoted will struggle next season, I just hope that a few of the others are going to drop away into that relegation battle of around 7-8 teams.

 

Pen merchant who doesn’t score form outside the box, excels at defending opposition corners and gives strange post match interviews ranting about “haters” and “proving people wrong”

Who does that remind you of?

 

He only scored 1 goal from open play in the 8 games against the three relegated teams plus they wont get as many pens due to VAR, he'll be lucky to get 10 next season

 

If you have more of the ball it is inevitable that you will concede less. Next season they will have far less of the ball. Don't need xga and all that tosh to tell me that

 

Personally think Watkins is a much better player than Toney. He also proved himself in the Championship for 3 seasons, getting better each year. Toney has had one good season in the championship. He’s now going to be up against much better defenders, playing for a team that won’t dominate like they are use to. He’s going to be doing more defending than attacking and he’s already shown that he easily gets frustrated when it’s not going his way. We make fun of Gray for missing sitters, but Toney has had missed some shockers this season. Many times he has lacked composure in 1v1 situations. He won’t get the same amount of opportunities he use too. Anyway, sorry for the rant.

 

Don’t agree at all

 

He’s only missed 10 big chances. Put that in comparison to Gray (12), Pukki (22), Armstrong (23). Think you’re over analysing it personally

 

No you can’t. It’s impossible to predict any window. We have no idea of the the window we’re about to have. You can’t tell me you can predict Norwich, Brentford, Brighton, Palace, Newcastle etc the window they are about to have. 2/3 days ago no-one had any clue we were about to sign Louza. We weren’t linked with him anywhere.

 

Perhaps. I just don’t get all the hype around him. Only scored 3 more goals than Armstrong overall, who played for a much worse team. Scored 1 less goal than Armstrong from open play. Not saying I rate Armstrong, he’s a shot merchant, but I think if you put Armstrong in that Brentford team this past season, he scores more than Toney.

 

We've got more chance of signing James Toney.

 

We've got more chance of signing Toney Basil.

 

You don't agree that if you have more of the ball you are less likely to concede?

 

If you don't shoot you don't score, Luther made a career out of it

 

Do you understand what a prediction is? We can all predict what we like and draw our own conclusions, whether we are right or not is a different matter.

Nobody was guessing tables just predicting that Brentford would finish above us, hardly outlandish is it?

 

I hope so at this stage of life.

You’re right, people can do that. It’s extremely stupid to do so though, especially at this stage. Ancelotti just abandoned Everton. No-one was predicting that 3 days ago. That’s my point. Why predict something that will drastically change before the season even starts. Then even once the season has started, it can/will change with the window still open. Until 1st September, all predictions are pointless.

So I apologize for wording it wrong in saying you can’t predict. You can. You’re (not you personally) just extremely thick to do so now.

 

You're taking the mickey now.

 

I predict we won't finish above Manchester City.

 

Timmy Mallett. He did this all the time.

 

Thicko

 

**** knows why they felt the need to offer him that 5 year deal.

 

Our recruitment has been pretty poor for the past few seasons now, you do realise just because Duxbury suddenly says we lost our way and are going to change how we do it, that doesn’t automatically mean our recruitment will suddenly be excellent? Otherwise why didn’t we just do it all along?

Brentford have recruited significantly better than us over the past few seasons, on a pound for pound basis ridiculously so. With a budget now 20x the size I wouldn’t call it a stretch to say that could well continue, would you?

Yes Brexit will have changed how they have to recruit, but do you honestly think they won’t have planned for that? In fact I saw an interview where they explained they’d planned for it long in advance.

That’s not also allowing for the extra debt we have and just two players taking up wages that are probably enough to pay at least ten of theirs.

So based on all evidence I would personally back them to have a better window, not least because simply changing our approach to recruitment isn’t in itself an automatic guarantee that it works.

But as you allude to, it’s a funny old game and I hope to be proven wrong.

 

When we hear him refer to himself in the third person as “The Big Man “ we will know the transformation is complete .