Chris Wilder helped Ivan Toney progress at Northampton Town – two years on, the Newcastle United forward should consider a reunion at Sheffield United.
Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez’s admission that the club’s academy graduates could be shunted aside in favour of outside imports, as reported by the Sunderland Echo, will hardly have been music to the ears of Ivan Toney.
After all, the 21-year-old striker has not yet played a single minute under the Spaniard, having been farmed out on loan to first Shrewsbury Town and then Scunthorpe United this season.
And with his spell at The Iron set to come to an end in just a few weeks’ time, it’s unsure where Toney will be plying his trade next season.
Though maybe it’s time to reunite with a manager whose belief in his abilities is unwavering.
“I don’t see a better 19-year-old forward in the bottom two divisions than Ivan,” then-Northampton Town boss Chris Wilder said of the highly-rated young forward back in 2015, as reported by the Northampton Chronicle.
Toney made his debut two years before Wilder arrived at Sixfields but enjoyed the most prolific season of his career under the 49-year-old in 2014/15, netting ten times.
He swapped Northampton for Newcastle at the end of the campaign but, with his career stuttering somewhat as he jumps from one short-term loan to the next, perhaps a season-long deal at Wilder’s current club could help him rediscover that golden touch.
Sheffield United, cruising to promotion from League One, are surely in need of attacking reinforcements in the summer. Beyond 26-goal talisman Billy Sharp, not Blade has hit double figures this season.
Therefore, perhaps Wilder should turn to a player he knows well.
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