Toney faces biggest battle of a career that proved doubters wrong

LONDON: It is fair to say Ivan Toney's route to be regarded as one of the best striker's in English soccer has been a circuitous one around some of the country's least fashionable staging posts.

At the age of 27, however, the former Newcastle United reject had finally proved those who doubted his talent wrong and his career seemed set to ignite.

Sadly for Toney, less than two months after earning his first England cap, he finds himself facing yet another battle, this time a self-inflicted one after being banned for eight months because of 232 breaches of the FA's betting rules.

Rather than his career moving to another level, potentially with a big-money move to a top-six club and becoming an England regular, Toney will not kick a competitive ball until next January - an eternity in the life of a goal-hungry footballer.

It is a huge blow to Premier League club Brentford, for whom he has scored 20 league goals this season - a total bettered only by Erling Haaland and Harry Kane.

It is also a loss to England manager Gareth Southgate, for whom Toney offered an alternative to take the strain off Kane.

Toney, who soccer statistics website values at 50 million pounds, may still return once he has served his suspension to be in the mix for England's Euro 2024 squad and the fact he will be free to train with his club in September despite still being banned will be a tonic.

But having worked so hard to rise through the ranks, Toney must now overcome another hurdle in a career moulded far away from the pristine training grounds of England's elite clubs.

Like some former goal scoring greats - the likes of Ian Wright and Les Ferdinand - Toney did it the hard way, surviving the school of hard knocks in the lower echelons.

He made his Football