Gary Neville couldn't help but praise Ivan Toney for his response to being overlooked by Gareth Southgate for England's 26-man World Cup squad.
The Brentford striker has been in fine form this season but saved his best performance for the Bees trip to the Etihad on Saturday afternoon where his brace helped Thomas Frank's side register a shock 2-1 win over reigning champions Manchester City.
Toney now has a very impressive 10 league goals in 14 games, with the two against Pep Guardiola's side a timely reminder to the England boss that he has opted against selecting one of the most in-form forwards in the country. Neville took to Twitter to heap praise on the 26-year-old for his ability to get over the Three Lions snub.
The former Manchester United defender initially simply wrote: "Ivan Toney", followed by four applause emojis. Just minutes later, Neville doubled down by adding: "Left out of a World Cup squad 48 hours ago and responds with that! Brilliant from @Ivantoney24" and signed off with another applause emoji.
Toney's manager was full of praise for his talisman after the game and refused to rule out the Bees striker still appearing in Qatar in the coming weeks.
"What a player," Frank said. "Honestly. I know it’s a big story about the World Cup squad. I believe Gareth picked the strongest squad because of course as managers that’s what we do.
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"But if there is an injury to one of the forward players I hope he will think about Ivan because he definitely proved it.
"This was a game in which we are playing maybe the best team in the world and he is scoring two goals and getting five chances, just getting on the end of things. People are defined by how they respond to setbacks. You either feel sorry for yourself or you respond back."
Southgate explained his decision to omit Toney from the side on Thursday and insisted the snub should be used as a motivation to force his way back into the fold in the future.
"With Ivan, we wanted to find out a little bit more about him last month and he’s done brilliantly to get himself in the frame," the England manager explained.
"Now he’s got to use that as a springboard to be available and get involved with England in the future."
Southgate decided to select Newcastle forward Callum Wilson as the back-up striking option instead of Toney, despite the fact the Magpies number nine has four fewer goals than his Brentford counterpart.
