Ivan Toney's Newcastle reunion arrives after striking rise at Brentford

When Ivan Toney lines up for Brentford on Tuesday, Newcastle will surely ponder what might have been. Since swapping St James’ Park for Peterborough two years ago in search of stability after six loans at four League One clubs, Toney’s tally of 56 league goals is unrivalled in the top four divisions of English football.

The 24-year-old failed to find the net in the first four games of this season but has scored 16 goals in 18 matches since, securing his status as the Championship’s leading goalscorer, ahead of Adam Armstrong, another forward for whom Newcastle had high hopes.

Toney was given the captain’s armband as Brentford breezed beyond Reading on Saturday, limbering up to face his former club by teeing up Bryan Mbeumo to score and heading against the bar in second-half stoppage time.

The worrying thing from a Newcastle perspective is perhaps Toney was keeping his powder dry for the Carabao Cup quarter-final, having scored in six of his seven previous matches. Newcastle squeaked through on penalties against Newport of League Two in the previous round and a Brentford team unbeaten in 13 games – the longest run in the country – pose formidable opposition.

Twenty-five league goals were excavated from Brentford’s attack when Ollie Watkins departed for Aston Villa in a £33m deal on the eve of the season but Toney has filled his shoes without fuss. Brentford paid a club-record £6m, plus add‑ons, but neither the fee nor the protagonist role has fazed him. No player has outscored Toney in the top-four leagues this season but his impressive return is no surprise to those who have worked with him. “He has got a mentality where he is not afraid to get stuck in and upset the centre‑backs,” says Paul Heckingbottom, who coached Toney at Barnsley.

Toney, released by Leicester as a boy, became Northampton’s youngest first-team player at 16 and helped the club fight relegation to non-league under Chris Wilder a season later, scoring a header and an exquisite overhead kick in a crucial victory at Dagenham & Redbridge before striking to secure survival on the final day.

“Lee Collins and myself were head-tennis partners but we played in threes sometimes, and we dragged Ivan into our team,” says Ben Tozer, a former Northampton defender. “It is quite unheard of, to want a youth-team player in your side for head tennis. But he had such a good leap. He was quite reliable at that age, which is a compliment in itself.”

A £500,000 move to Wolves collapsed in 2014 over a failed medical and Toney joined Newcastle 10 months later. “Mentally that could destroy a lot of players but he just got on with it,” says Tozer, now of Cheltenham, who also joined Newcastle as a teenager.

Toney made his Premier League debut at 19 but had to make do with cameos; four substitute appearances in three years, most of which he spent on loan, twice at Barnsley and then at Shrewsbury, Scunthorpe, Wigan and Scunthorpe again.

“He wasn’t just happy to sit around Newcastle with all the facilities there – he wanted to go out and play,” says Graham Alexander, who twice signed Toney for Scunthorpe. “We were going for promotion and I told him he wouldn’t just walk into the team, but that didn’t frighten him off at all. He was always confident in his ability – he just wanted to prove himself.

“I know how ambitious Ivan is and what he is doing now won’t be top of his hit list. He won’t be sitting there thinking he’s made it.”

The wiry teenager has bulked up and those who have signed him note Toney’s aerial prowess sets him apart. Barry Fry, the Peterborough director of football, says the striker was priceless in both boxes. “He was like a magnet. His link-up play was brilliant, but he was our best defender by a mile. And he’s still doing that for Brentford in the Championship. The beauty of him is he is very hungry. He wants to prove it at every level, and he will.”

West Brom and Fulham were keen, as were Crystal Palace and Celtic, and Peterborough, for whom Toney scored 49 goals in 94 matches, even had a sniff from Tottenham. But Brentford were first to make their admiration for Toney plain and after having three bids rejected in January they returned to land their top target at the seventh time of asking.

West Brom and Fulham felt uneasy about taking a striker from the third tier but Brentford had no such concerns. Fry says: “[Jamie] Vardy was the top scorer in the Premier League last year; [Michail] Antonio was on fire last season and he came from lower down [non-league]. [Danny] Ings did his apprenticeship lower down, so I can’t understand these people with that attitude.”

Peterborough have been here before. They sold Dwight Gayle to Crystal Palace, Britt Assombalonga to Nottingham Forest and Jack Marriott to Derby for handsome profit. They are familiar with scouts tracking their players and face a fight to keep the forward Siriki Dembélé in January, with Palace, Fulham and Forest among those interested.

There are parallels between Peterborough’s buy-low-sell-high mantra and Brentford’s philosophy. “We did it before Brentford,” says Fry, laughing. “But it is what they do and because they’re higher in the leagues their figures have several more noughts on.”