Frank ‘100% confident’ Toney will stay if Bees go up

Thomas Frank said Ivan Toney will play for Brentford in the Premier League if they win promotion, after the striker equalled the Championship’s individual season scoring record in the 2-0 win over Watford.

Toney scored his 30th goal of the season, and ninth penalty, to match Glenn Murray’s total from 2012/13.

And Frank said that if the Bees are successful in the play-offs he was “confident we will keep him 100%”.

The Bees boss continued: “Ivan will be a Premier League player – there is no doubt he will be there.

“We like to keep players for two or three seasons, and if we go up I can’t see a better place than us to play, no matter where he could go. Here he has proved he can do well and he knows the team and his team-mates.”

 

However, Frank did concede that if Brentford miss out once again, Toney could be on the move.

He explained: “It would be a decision for Matthew Benham, Rasmus Ankersen and Phil Giles.

“As I said, we usually keep players for two or three years, but only six clubs in the world are not selling clubs so let’s see. If he’s not staying though, he will be bloody expensive.”

Frank praised Toney for reaching the 30-goal mark.

The Dane said: “It’s a massive achievement. I am pretty sure he will finish top scorer now and he has the top amount of assists with 10 – it’s crazy numbers, so he deserves a lot of praise.

“One of our biggest values is togetherness, and you could see how the team celebrated with him. He is top scorer but not too much about himself – he wants to make the team better. He doesn’t just go for goal and I loved the celebrations.”

Midfielder Mads Bidstrup made an impressive full debut.

Frank said: “He deserves a lot of praise. He played like a senior pro and like he had played the last 10 years in our first team.

“He moved the ball well and had an aura over him. He is a high-energy player with a great future here.”