Frank McAvennie: West Ham and David Moyes made a mistake over Ivan Toney
We’re delighted to welcome former West Ham United striker Frank McAvennie as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the London Stadium…
Frank McAvennie believes David Moyes made a rare error in the transfer market when he passed up the opportunity to sign Ivan Toney for West Ham.
Toney, 25, has been prolific for Brentford since he joined in the summer of 2020, scoring 33 goals during his debut campaign as he helped to fire the Bees to promotion to the Premier League.
He has scored twice already this season, and ahead of Brentford’s 2-1 win over West Ham at the beginning of October [03/10/21], Moyes admitted that he could have signed the Englishman for the Irons.
“We scouted him a lot at Peterborough,” Moyes said. “Sometimes you find something, sometimes you don’t. He was certainly one in the ‘do we don’t we’ category when he was at Peterborough.” [football.london]
Former West Ham forward McAvennie has rued the club’s inability to sign Toney.
“Both my teams were looking at him, Celtic and West Ham,” McAvennie told West Ham Zone.
“It’s one of those situations, there’s no future in the past.
“He made a mistake, I don’t think he’ll make many. He’s one of these guys that when something happens, he will learn from it.”
Perfect profile
Toney actually ticks a lot of boxes for a West Ham signing, even when he was at Peterborough.
Young, homegrown and making his name in the lower divisions of the English Football League, he could have made a similar move to that of Jarrod Bowen, who signed from Championship strugglers Hull City midway through the 2019/20 campaign.
However, perhaps therein lies the slight difference in circumstances.
While Bowen was showcasing his abilities in the second-tier, just like Said Benrahma, who also joined the Irons in 2020, Toney was playing in League One for Posh, and perhaps that was a step too far for the risk-averse Moyes.
As it transpires, the jump up in divisions has had no effect on Toney, and he’s surely back on West Ham’s radar as they look for a long-term Michail Antonio replacement.
In other West Ham news, Fabrizio Romano has delivered a major update on this prolific striker that the Irons reportedly want to sign on a free transfer.
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