Toney’s future shrouded in uncertainty but ban leaves no upsides for anyone

Ivan Toney will have seen a ban coming down the track but few things can adequately prepare a footballer for the fact that, over the next eight months, he will be unable to ply his trade. The outcome is among the worst he could have envisaged and casts a shroud of uncertainty over the prospects of a player who has blossomed into one of the country’s most accomplished centre-forwards.

When Toney, who has been suspended after admitting 232 breaches of FA betting rules between 25 February 2017 and 23 January 2021, returns to action he will face a battle to pick up where he left off. Only Erling Haaland and Harry Kane sit ahead of him in this season’s Premier League scoring charts, his 20 goals contributing heavily to a fine year for Brentford. At 27 he is approaching his peak and a lay-off until next January will eat away valuable time from a career whose star had soared.

Three years ago Toney was completing a prolific League One season with Peterborough, where he had finally found a home after being shunted around on five different loans from Newcastle. The Magpies had taken a punt on a 19-year-old who turned heads at Northampton but, until Brentford’s arrival at the highest level, he had made only two top-flight appearances as a substitute.

Now Toney can claim a record of better than a goal every two games in the Premier League and can justifiably say he has got there the hard way. In August 2021 he told the Guardian of his “bumpy road” to the top, having fired Brentford to the elite in his first season at the club, but the sanction imposed by an independent regulatory commission on Wednesday may present the biggest obstacle yet.

Toney will be allowed to resume training in mid-September but his return to competitive