Frank jokes Toney could give Messi and Haaland advice on penalties

Thomas Frank has joked that Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland should be asking for advice on taking penalties from in-form Brentford striker Ivan Toney.

The much-heralded marksmen each missed a spot-kick during midweek Champions League ties, while Toney maintained his 100% penalty record for the Bees this season when he slotted home to earn them a 1-0 win at Blackburn on Friday night.

“Ivan is really good with the penalties,” the Bees boss said.

“I keep texting him and when I watched Dortmund and saw Haaland missed, I said to Ivan ‘You need to speak to Erling’.

“Then we saw Messi miss in the big game and I texted Ivan again. He said ‘Yes I texted him (Messi) but he hasn’t responded yet’.”

Toney has scored with six consecutive penalties.

“I never get nervous. You have just got to pass it into the back of the net like I did,” he said after the Blackburn game.

Toney disagrees with Frank’s recent assertion that Championship leaders Norwich are as good as promoted, and that there is only one automatic spot still up for grabs.

“I think we can still catch Norwich,” said Toney.

“You have to keep winning game by game and who knows what can happen – the Championship is a crazy league.”

Frank responded: “It is very important in sport to have big belief and to have that confidence that everything could happen.

“But for me the next thing is that we recover well and then focus on another big task against Derby on Tuesday.”