‘Right now,’ chairman urges Liverpool owners to sign £40 million Premier League striker Ivan Toney Liverpool owners have been told to ‘write a big cheque’ for Brentford striker Ivan Toney.
Toney is off to a great start in the Premier League. He’s hot right now after scoring eight goals and earning a call-up to the England squad.
Darragh MacAnthony, chairman of Peterborough United, certainly believes so. MacAnthony urged Liverpool’s owners to sign the 26-year-old on his The Hard Truth podcast.
“Ivan is on a different level. Is there a better number nine at Chelsea? Is there a better number nine at Manchester United?” queried the Liverpool fan? “You can go and write a cheque for £100million and buy a player from Holland or France or Italy and give them a year to acclimatize, or you can write a cheque and buy one of the top three number nines in the Premier League, who’s not even in the prime of his career. What do you do?
“Right now, if Liverpool had owners who would write that cheque, I’d happily have him in Liverpool’s team like that!”
This isn’t the first time MacAnthony has championed signing Toney for Liverpool. But given that he’s, firstly, a Liverpool fan and, secondly, the chairman of Toney’s former club, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
There are probably many fans who would potentially feel the same way as him. The Brentford man has shown himself to be a consistent Premier League goal scorer over the last year and a bit after all.
Frankly, though, that doesn’t mean he’s the answer for Liverpool. Jurgen Klopp will have to oversee a bit of an overhaul of his squad over the next year or so. Signing every Premier League player who has a good run of form shouldn’t be part of that overhaul.
If Toney was available for a lower price, then it might be a different story. But as per the Independent, Brentford was quoting teams £40m for him this summer.
As he’s kicked on since then and also had some international recognition, that price may have shot up further.
For a player who would more than likely be a backup at Anfield, that is simply too expensive.
To be fair, MacAnthony acknowledges this. If Liverpool’s owners were willing to write such checks on a regular basis, they should be looking for better players than Toney.
Of course, the former Newcastle player could call that claim into question. He appears to be on track for a move to a top club at some point. Only then will we know if he has the ability to play for Liverpool. For the time being, the Reds cannot afford to take that risk.
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