Scout report: Ivan Toney
In recent years, football enthusiasts have rightfully fallen in love with Brentford FC, and the “Moneyball”-esque approach that has been implemented in building out a competitive squad, that managed to get out of the Championship, and get promoted to the top flight of English football for the first time in 75 years.
Using that approach, the club sold their in-form center forward Ollie Watkins to Aston Villa for a reported £28 million in the summer of 2020, and replaced him with the relatively unknown Ivan Toney for £5 million, who had just come off a 24 goal season in League 1 with Peterborough. Fast forward a year later, Toney has become their star man and most sought-after commodity, scoring 33 goals in the Championship during their promotion year. Following a strong start to the Premier League season, Toney is now part of discussions around fans of “Big 6” clubs, who are wondering whether their teams should splash a big sum of money to bring the Northampton-born 25 year old (1996) in. In this piece, I will break down Toney’s tactical role, strengths & weaknesses, as well as attempt to answer the questions of whether he is actually good enough for such a potential move.
LINK-UP PLAY & PLAYMAKING
Brentford’s 4-2-4 / 3-5-2 shape in the build-up
This season, Brentford have been a very direct team. They usually build in an asymmetric 4-2-4 system, with the goalkeeper splitting the left and middle center backs, and the RCB drifting into a traditional right back zone. The LWB stays deep in the left back zone, while the RWB pushes up along the frontline. The RCM advances into the right half-space, while the other two midfielders form a double pivot in front of the back-line
Next up comes in the dynamic between the striking partnership, Ivan Toney & Bryan Mbeumo. They operate like an old-school “big-small” English partnership, with the former resembling the “Target man”, and the latter the runner. This is crucial to their ball progression, as when Brentford are pressed and are unable to build-up short, they turn to the long-ball. Their main progressional route this season has been GK -> LF, David Raya to Toney. The Spanish goalie is renowned for his world-class kicking range, while the English striker is one of the best aerial forwards in Europe, winning 4.86 aerial duels per 90 minutes. Brentford’s form has faltered since Raya picked up a long-term injury after game-week 9, picking up 1.33 points per game in the Spaniard’s 9 appearances this PL season, as opposed to 1.14 in the 7 games since. To highlight how important he is to Brentford’s attacking play, the team generated 1.38 xG per game with Raya in goal, and 1.16 with the back-up GK Alvaro Fernandez.
To illustrate Brentford’s direct build-up (GK -> striking partnership), we look at image below. Raya kicks it long from his own box towards Toney, who elevates above Matty Cash to win the aerial duel and knock it forwards first time to Mbuemo beyond the opposing back-line, who is making a run between the two CB’s.
Toney is a specialist of the aerial game in the opponent’s half, and is particularly adept at not only towering above his marker, but also knocking it down to his teammates, like above. Another example is the image below, where he gets between aerial monsters in Virgil van Dijk & Joel Matip, and heads it on to Mbeumo and gets him 1v1 against the opposing keeper:
In terms of his role in the second & third phase of play, Ivan is Brentford’s primary playmaker & creator. Despite having the attributes and physique of a prototypical #9, his role has changed this season into a mixture of a #10 and a #9. Most attacks go through him, and he is often asked to drop in the midfield line to link up play. That is where he truly shines, and has the type of skill-set that makes him unique and desirable among other Premier League CF’s.
In this instance, he drops deep below the half-way line, and receives the ball directly from the CCB Jansson. Despite his back-to-goal body orientation suggesting he’ll play it back to his center-backs, he plays a lovely disguised pass to Onyeka in the right half-space, breaking Leicester’s midfield line:
Along with his link-up skillset, he also possesses a top-quality final ball beyond the defensive line, by far my favourite attribute of his. He is a specialist at picking apart a high-line, by playing through either his striking partner, or runners from deep.
Even with his weaker foot!
In the instance below, his showcases his vision, by playing a one-touch pass immediately upon receiving, to the midfield runner beyond the back-line:
At times he is also tasked with running the channel, in order to get in position for a cut-back. Here, he runs down Wolves’ right-hand side, and puts the cutback on a plate (between two defenders) for Mbeumo to score the tap-in:
Playmaking-wise, he’s had a strong statistical year, generating 0.2 expected assists (xA) per 90, as well as 2.21 progressive passes per 90. This is backed up by his performance in the Championship where he assisted 10 goals on 11 xA (0.23 per 90).
He also has strong technique in tight spaces, where he is able to get away from defenders with one or two touches to free up space and pass it on. Despite that, he is not really a dribbler (attempts only 1.2 per 90), as he is more happy to link-play, than do things himself.
If I had to pick out a weakness of his in that department, I would say that at times he is too over-eager to hit the “Hollywood pass”, ignoring a safer option to go for a lower probability final ball. In the instance below, he has the option to play it to the overlapping wing-back Rico Henry, but instead chooses to play an outside of the foot ball between defenders to Mbeumo, which is easily intercepted by Michael Keane.
GOALSCORING INSTINCTS & BALL STRIKING
Now it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room, Ivan Toney’s ridiculously low 0.19 non-penalty xG per 90, which has only amounted to 2 non-penalty goals in 14 full 90 minute appearances in the PL this season. This has been a big subject of debate among appreciators & critics of the Englishman. Personally, I wanted to debunk some myths, as well as add some context to his poor goalscoring numbers.
As I mentioned earlier, Toney’s role for Brentford this season has been mainly a playmaking one, drastically different from his role in the Championship, where he scored 32 goals (22 non-penalty, 19.4 npxG, 0.4 npxG per 90) in 48 games. This has to do with many different factors. Not only as the primary playmaker Toney’s role is not designed to get on the end of many chances himself, but also his team generates significantly less chances than they did last season. In 16 games in the PL this season, Brentford generate 1.14 npxG per game, while last season in 49 championship games, they generated 1.54 npxG per 90, a 0.4 drop in this metric. The cause of this obviously has to do a lot with the big difference in opposition quality, rather than Toney’s performance level declining. Following my research on his movement and ball striking, I am of the opinion that Toney does not have any particular deficiencies in this area of his game, and so should get back to good goal-scoring numbers if placed in a more creative side.
His ball striking is definitely a strong aspect of his game. He is very good technically (depicted in the playmaking part of the piece), and is very good at firing off powerful shots on target from obscure angles:
He is also athletic enough, to catch some acrobatic shots from crosses. Not all of them go in, but he is definitely capable of firing off a strong volley or side-kick:
He is also very composed in front of goal, and does not rush his shoots when facing pressure by a keeper who engages. He reacts to the keepers’ movement and places his shot on the opposing side, as opposed to firing it off instinctively when 1v1:
He is also willing to attempt to round the keeper, if he engages too far away from his goal, another sign of good composure in 1v1 situations:
Looking through his career goals, you will notice a lot of easy finishes, including tap ins from crosses, cutbacks & rebounds. I would not say his instincts are world class, however, his movement and anticipation is more than good enough to be regular goal scorer in the Premier League, if given the chances. Below, you can see an example of his anticipation of a shot getting rebounded on his path:
He is adept at making dangerous runs to slither away from his markers and get on the end of crosses & cutbacks. In this instance, he curves his run to get between the two defenders and then beyond them, to latch on the wing-back’s cross on the volley:
Earlier we went through his aerial prowess outside the box, and it’s not any worse inside the box either. He can head the ball on target from crosses, and he is also a dangerous threat from set-pieces, where he uses his strong leap and tall frame to out-jump defenders.
Furthermore, he is a fantastic penalty taker, boasting a career 94.7% record (18/19 spot kicks). He has a slow run up that consists of two steps, a small set up one, and a bigger one that is slow, which usually generates a reaction from the keeper. When Toney spots that, he calmly places it the other side. His preferred technique is indeed sending the keeper the wrong way, rather than proactively smashing it in.
PHYSICAL PROFILE & DEFENSIVE PROWESS
Ivan stands at 6’2” (187 cm) tall, and has a strong & athletic frame. As mentioned earlier, he is adept at using it to hold off his marker and win aerial duels. He stands out in defensive set pieces too, where he collects most of 1.14 clearances per 90 from. While agile and athletic, he is not very fast over large spaces. As an outlet, he is better used as a target-man, rather than as a runner. He does have however a respectable 5 yard burst, which he uses to get away from his markers in tight spaces.
In terms of his pressing, Brentford are not the most intense pressing team volume-wise. In fact, they rank just about average in pressures per 90 among PL teams, at 9th place with 146.1. Toney himself puts in an average 14.4 pressures per 90, with 25.2% of them being successful. You won’t see him running around at full intensity all the time pressing the backline, but he is decent at closing down passing lanes, and shadow covering opposing midfielders.
He knows how to position his body in order to put in a good tackle and dispossess his opponent (relative to other forwards), and is also happy to drop very deep to defend with his team as part of a disciplined structure:
CONCLUSION
For the last part of this piece, I will attempt to anticipate and answer some possible questions readers would ask me regarding Ivan Toney:
“You only showed him as a part of a front 2, can he hack it as a lone CF?”
Yes, I am very confident he can, he has an impeccable skillset that will translate well as a lone CF with runners playing off him.
“So, is he good enough for a top 6 level club and if yes, where would you see him fit well?”
I absolutely believe he is. Is he the kind of CF that will single-handedly win you the league by scoring 30 goals? Not in my view, however, I think he can be an instrumental part of a top level side, as a complete forward, who can drop deep and create for wide forwards and underlapping midfielders, as well as score a respectable amount of goals. I could see him fitting very well in a 4-3-3 side next to goalscoring wingers. Obviously Liverpool & Arsenal come to mind, two clubs that have been linked with signing him.
“Where would you rank him in terms of Premier League CF’s?”
Obviously this is my own criteria, but if Harry Kane is Tier 1 of PL forwards on his own, I definitely believe that Toney is part of a large tier 2, alongside names like Romelu Lukaku, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Roberto Firmino, a fit Patrick Bamford and more.
“What would you pay for him if you were in charge of a club interested in signing him?”
Considering he will be 26 in the summer (start of his peak), is homegrown and owned by a fellow PL club, anything under £50 million would be a steal in my opinion. I’d go as high as £55-60 million right now, I think.
Thank you very much for reading! - @NSftbl
