Gareth Southgate has promised Ivan Toney a last chance to earn a place at Euro 2024 but revealed he prioritised Harry Kane in Monday’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Brentford striker Toney was left an unused substitute at St James’ Park on Monday after Southgate started with Ollie Watkins – indicating the Aston Villa top scorer is in line to understudy Kane in Germany.
And he brought on Kane after an hour, allowing the England captain to score his 63rd international goal, by rationalising the 30-year-old needed game time after missing Bayern Munich’s final two matches of the campaign with a back injury.
It means Toney is likely to only have an appearance as a replacement for Kane against Iceland at Wembley on Friday to stake his case to make Southgate’s final 26-man cut.
The England manager explained: “He will be involved in the game on Friday but I have got to get Harry Kane right so sometimes the priorities of what’s required and what you would like to see as well, you can’t achieve all of those objectives. Simple as that.”
Southgate confirmed all his substitutions on Monday were planned, so it was never his intention to use Toney. “Some had had enough minutes, some we want to go again on Friday so we needed to get them off so they weren’t too fatigued,” he said. “There were various things we wanted to see but also changes that were planned.”
Toney scored on his last international appearance, March’s 2-2 draw with Belgium, but finished the season without a goal in his last 12 appearances for Brentford.
While the expansion of the Euro 2026 squads to 26 players gave Southgate the option of taking three specialist strikers, it is possible he will only pick two, augmented by wingers who have also played in the middle, such as Jarrod Bowen, Phil Foden and Anthony Gordon.
