Ivan Toney ramps up war of words with Arsenal over ‘cringeworthy’ tweet

Ivan Toney has escalated his war of words with Arsenal’s players by calling their mockery of him on social media cringeworthy.

Toney became an unpopular figure at Arsenal after tweeting “Nice kick about with the boys” after Brentford’s 2-0 win against them at the start of last season. The tweet was used as motivation by Mikel Arteta when Brentford visited the Emirates Stadium last February and it came up again when the sides met at the Gtech Community Stadium on Sunday.

Arsenal fans celebrated their team’s 3-0 win by aiming derisive chants at Toney, who has been called up by England for the first time, and the mockery continued after the game.

Gabriel Magalhães, the Arsenal centre-back, took aim at the striker by tweeting: “Nice kick about with the boys”. Toney suggested it could be time for Arsenal to come up with some new material, pointing out that Alexandre Lacazette, who has since left for Lyon, tweeted the same joke after Arsenal beat Brentford in February.

“I think once was funny, second time a bit cringey but I bit my tongue,” he said. “I wanted to reply, I wanted to nibble but fair play to them. They are a different Arsenal side to what we played before and they played very well.”

Toney hopes to make his England debut in the Nations League against Italy in Milan on Friday. The 26‑year‑old has had an impressive rise since failing to make the grade at Newcastle and moving to Peterborough in 2018. “That was an eye‑opener. That was: ‘Right, I have to turn my game around to get back up – I might see myself as a Premier League player but I am a League One player now. I have got to keep fighting and working hard.’ And I certainly did that.”

Toney’s goalscoring exploits for Peterborough earned him a move to Brentford in