Thomas Frank hails ‘amazing’ Ivan Toney after leaks

Following the leaked reports of a possible six-month ban for Ivan Toney after he was charged with 262 alleged breaches of FA’s gambling rules, Thomas Frank has praised the Bees’ striker Ivan Toney.

Toney himself posted on Instagram,

after the reports were leaked and how the FA has handled the situation. While Toney has accepted some of the breaches, he has contested others.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday,

head coach Frank said:

"The most important [thing] is Ivan. He is amazing in many aspects, the way he copes with pressure, or distraction, and this is of course a bigger one.

"This has been ongoing since November, and yet he just carried on scoring goals, performing for the team, driving the team. It is so remarkable. We are 11 games unbeaten [in the Premier League], so I guess that is a decent response."

Only Erling Haaland (27) and Harry Kane (18) have scored more than Toney's 14 goals in 21 Premier League matches. Frank insisted on Toney’s resilience to keep his form despite allegations.

"It is like life, sometimes things get thrown at you and you need to deal with it,"

he said.

"I would say that we share the disappointment of Ivan in terms of the leaks, that is for a confidential case. It surprised us massively. The timing of the leaks, just before the World Cup and the March international [England] team [announcement].

"The talk about that there is a potential ban as long as up to six months, that disappoints us. Then we share the disappointment that the talk about Ivan trained badly with the England squad. What is that?

"It is his first time with the England squad and I never met a player who did not want to do everything they can out on the training pitch, that wants to do well to impress the gaffer.

"I can only talk about Ivan what I see out here [in training] and around the place, he is a fantastic person around the group. He has that unique emotional intelligence to be aware of the lowest player to the top players and staff members.

"He has trained well and to me he is clearly number two in England as a striker. He has proven that with the goals and the performances."

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