The 29-year-old striker has only won seven England caps and his prospects of going to World Cup 2026 look very bleak even though he is scoring plenty of goals in Saudi Arabia
When England players arrived for duty at the Football Association’s media centre in Germany in the summer of 2024, they were all in regulation, sponsored footwear. All bar Ivan Toney.
He had brought his favourite slippers from home, presumably because he knew he would be spending a lot of time in them. He could have worn them throughout England’s group campaign at the Euros, Gareth Southgate not once turning to Toney during those three uninspiring games.
He would eventually get a few minutes and made a significant impact, producing an assist for Harry Kane’s extra-time winner in the round of 16 against Slovakia and converting his penalty in the shootout win over the Swiss in the quarterfinals. But overall, Toney’s Euro 2024 experience typified his relationship with the England set-up. Frustrating, unsatisfactory.
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The Al-Ahli forward is 29 but has played less than three hours’ worth of international football. For a striker of Toney’s talent – and considering alternatives to Kane have been thin on the ground – that is alarming, even allowing for the eight-month ban for breaching FA gambling rules.
And just as Southgate did not seem to have great faith in Toney, it appears Thomas Tuchel is also unconvinced – to say the least. Tuchel called him into a squad last June, left him on the bench for the qualifier against Andorra and then gave him two minutes in the friendly defeat to Senegal. And that has been it.
It seems Toney’s excellent form in the Saudi Pro League – 41 goals in 59 games – counts for very little in the England manager’s eyes. And maybe Tuchel was not impressed with Toney when he had him on the squad.
Whatever the case, the only way Toney is likely to go to next summer’s World Cup is if he moves back from Saudi in January and lights up the Premier League in the second half of the season. First things first, Toney might not want to come back.
He is on fantastic money in Saudi, has a contract that runs until 2028 and seems to be enjoying his football. And quite frankly, he might have given up on England or, more likely, might think it is not important enough to take a hefty reduction in a salary reported to be £400,000 a week.
But one thing IS for sure. There are plenty of Premier League clubs who will – and definitely should – sound him out ahead of the mid-season window. And Everton are top of that list.
Toney and David Moyes’ side would be the perfect fit. Moyes has spoken glowingly about Toney in the not-too-distant past and is nurturing a team at Everton that just needs a striking figurehead.
As much as Moyes and the fans are willing either of them to be that leader in attack, it looks unlikely that Beto or Thierno Barry can fit that bill. Toney would. And he would revel in the service provided by the likes of Jack Grealish, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Iliman Ndiaye.
With relatively new, ambitious owners, Everton is a club that is looking up, although the same could be said about Spurs, now that Thomas Frank appears to have steadied their Premier League fortunes. And, of course, Toney – arguably one of the game’s best penalty takers – and Frank worked successfully together at Brentford.
It could come down to who shows Toney they want him most, in terms of a contract offer. He turns 30 in March but would surely want a deal that would run for three years. To give someone a long, lucrative deal at that age might seem a bit of a gamble but Toney guarantees goals – and if he returned to the Premier League, perhaps Tuchel will take notice of that guarantee.
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