Newcastle United’s Ivan Toney transfer decision explained as Brentford man delivers Rafa Benitez verdict

Ivan Toney is currently serving an eight-month suspension from football for breaching FA betting rules. The Brentford man won’t return to first-team football at the Gtech Community Stadium until January 16 and isn’t allowed to train with his teammates until September 17.

Having scored 21 goals in all competitions for the Bees last term, Toney’s absence will be a big miss for Thomas Frank’s side this season. Toney has led the line for Brentford since his move from Peterborough United in 2020 - a club where he impressed greatly after making the permanent switch to London Road from St James’ Park.

Toney’s superb form in front of goal since leaving Newcastle has had fans debating whether the club made the correct call in allowing him to leave for just £300,000 in 2018. And whilst fans will continue to discuss this issue, the striker has admitted that he didn’t let Newcastle’s decision to sell him affect his performances and told the Diary of a CEO Podcast the reasons why the Magpies allowed him to leave.

Toney said: “[My agent’s] words were: ‘the club don’t think you’re good enough at this moment in time’. In my head I’m like ‘that’s fine, no problem, it’s time for me to regroup and go somewhere else’.

“It wasn’t like I was too old, it was just a knock back that at the time I probably needed to kickstart my journey.”

Toney was then pushed on whether or not Newcastle made the right decision in allowing him to leave the club at that time: “Possibly.” Toney responded. 

“Don’t get me wrong Newcastle are a great club and have had some great players and are doing very well at the moment, but I feel like I didn’t really have a chance in the first-team to prove if I was good enough. I feel that personally anyway.

“To be fair, the time was when Newcastle were fighting to stay in the Premier League when Rafa Benitez first came in so that was kind of understandable as he wanted these [first-team] players to help try and keep them up.

“You can’t really put so much responsibility on young players to keep you up in the Premier League - it’s such a big ask. I feel like maybe the following season was like ‘could I get a sniff?’ But he brought his own players in and did his own thing - that’s football.”

Under Benitez, the Magpies were able to bounce back from relegation at the first time of asking to seal promotion back to the Premier League. During that season, Toney starred for first Shrewsbury Town and then Scunthorpe United as his stock in the game began to rise.

Dwight Gayle’s haul of 23 goals in just 32 league games that season fired the Magpies to promotion. In five games against the Magpies following his departure from the club, Toney has scored on three occasions but saw his perfect penalty record shattered by Nick Pope when the sides met at the Gtech Community Stadium in April.