After leaving Newcastle United for just £650,000 last summer, Ivan Toney’s value has soared after his involvement in 31 goals over the 2018/19 season.
The striker has bagged an impressive tally of 23 goals and 8 assists for Peterborough – a side that just missed out on the League One play-off’s despite his best efforts.
Doing the business in the third tier of English football does little to suggest a player is up to playing at Premier League level, but his impressive form will no have gone unnoticed by those at NUFC.
Here’s his FA Cup hat-trick in December, with the 23-year-old opening the scoring with a long-range wonder goal and completing his treble with a brilliant header:
Toney arrived on Tyneside from Northampton in the summer of 2015, costing the club £300,000, however he went on to complete more loan moves away to the Football League than first-team appearances.
He played just 4 times for the senior side and endured 6 loan spells away during his three years at the club, but it seems he’s now thriving after securing a permanent move to Peterborough.
Rafa Benitez and co won’t be losing any sleep – after all, Adam Armstrong scored for fun in League One but has ended the 2018/19 season with just 5 Championship goals during his first full season away from St James’ Park – but Toney’s value is bound to have quadrupled since his £650,000 sale.
Has the 6ft 2′ forward found his level, or do you feel he’s one who was never given a fair chance at first-team level?
Come on Olly – we’re not getting excited about a player dropping down 2 divisions and playing well are we?
It’s bad enough we still rave about Gayle, but League One”
Briiian(Quote)
I saw Toney play a few times for the U23s and he was awful!!.
Fernandez and Roberts stood out each time – Fernandez in particular.
I haven’t watched Peterborough at all this season, but did see a few league One games and the standard was very poor.
All that said. I do think we do our loan players a disservice. It seems to me that their loan moves are more to get them out the way, rather than their development being the main aim. I think the Sorensen fiasco at Blackpool highlighted that.
If Rafa really wants to develop youth players, then the monitoring of loan players has to be looked at.
Sharpy17(Quote)