Fabrizio Romano’s latest update on striker claims even £40m price drop hasn’t tempted Premier League offers | OneFootball

Fabrizio Romano’s latest update for Caught Offside is full of interesting information about one transfer saga that seems to be ending before it ever began.

This was supposed to be the summer of Ivan Toney, with Brentford prepared to sell before he gets into the final stages of his contract. But teams like Chelsea and Arsenal who were closely linked not long ago just don’t seem as interested as they did, as Romano explains:

“It’s also quiet around Ivan Toney right now. Honestly, Arsenal and Chelsea never made proposals now or in January despite links – I’m told Toney’s situation will be assessed in the summer and it’s not one for May,” the insider reported.

“Let’s see the strikers domino [effect], and the player’s price tag. Brentford never wanted to make any discount for Toney, despite some talk of his price coming down significantly.”

That price drop has been on the cards for a while. Not long ago Brentford said they wanted £100m, but as recently as a month ago it seemed like £60m would get the job done.

Ivan Toney celebrates in the Championship.

A hype train that was missed.

It seems that Brentford’s very patient attempts to get build hype around Toney while he was out and then hope they were prepared to pay big this summer have fallen flat. His return since the turn of the year has just been so underwhelming, and unless he does something crazy with England this summer, their prospects of getting the sort of money they were hoping for a year ago looks almost impossible.

As Romano’s comments make clear, right now there’s no bidding way – in fact it doesn’t seem like there have been any bids at all. We’re sure he will remain on a lot of teams’ shortlists simply because there’s always a lack of good striker options. But there is no clamour to spend £80m or £100m on him as the Bees might have hoped a year ago.