Ivan Toney was not worried about an England call-up after Brentford's away win against Southampton on Wednesday night - instead focusing on thwarting Arsenal's title charge.
Brentford fans are dreaming of a European tour - with the Bees flying high in eighth in the Premier League - but Toney has set his sights even higher... 25 points higher. The prolific striker joked, "It's a tough league but hopefully we can catch Arsenal!"
Toney scored his 16th goal of the season to hand Brentford a 2-0 win. Thomas Frank laughed when told of Toney’s target before adding, "He is a fantastic player to work with that optimism and belief transmitting to the team. An unbelievable winning mentality."
Toney has an intriguing relationship with Arsenal, to say the least. After Brentford's 2-0 win against the Gunners on the opening day of the 2021/22 campaign - the club's first ever game in the Premier League - Toney tweeted, "Nice kickabout with the boys."
That angered Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, who showed the tweet to his players ahead of the return game of the Emirates. The Gunners won that fixture 2-1 - and the "nice kickabout with the boys" line has been a key aspect of their London rivalry ever since.
Arsenal will be hoping no one catches them. They are five points clear of Manchester City at the top of the table and aiming to end their 19-year wait for a Premier League title. Arsene Wenger's 'Invincibles' are the last Arsenal team to achieve the feat.
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Toney scored with his only shot against Southampton at St Mary's - as he poked in Christian Damsgaard’s flick on in the first half. He then sent Yoane Wissa clean through on goal to add gloss to the score-line in stoppage time.
"As a striker you've got to be in the right place at the right time and to keep doing that I'm grateful," Toney added. "Coming off the back of a defeat after a long run we went on, it was important we bounced back."
Gareth Southgate names his England squad for Euro 2024 qualifiers against Italy and Ukraine next Thursday. Toney has been called-up by Southgate before, but is yet to make his Three Lions debut.
He was snubbed for the World Cup, with Callum Wilson preferred to the Bees hitman. But Wilson has only netted once since the restart in December, while just Erling Haaland and Harry Kane have scored more times than Toney in the Premier League this season.
"I don't expect anything from football," Frank said. "It's up to Gareth to pick the right squad. Ivan has done more than enough to give Gareth a headache in a positive way. If you look at pure goal scorers for England, he is the second highest goal scorer behind Kane, if you look at clear number nines he should be thinking very much about calling him up."
By contrast, Southampton are one of three teams with the fewest amount of Premier League goals this season - with only 20 to their name (along with Everton and Wolves ).
The Saints had chances, most notably through Che Adams in the second half, but remain rooted to the bottom. Asked about the lack of goals, Ruben Selles said, "We have been working on that. We are not a team that will score a massive amount of goals.
"Our structure is fragile and we need to work harder to keep those principles, because that is the only way that is going to lead us to score some goals. There is absolutely enough goals in the team to stay in the Premier League, no doubt about it.
"It is a team thing. It isn’t just the forwards not scoring goals it is on the rest of the team to create situations to score them."
