Ivan Toney has admitted speaking to Steven Gerrard about a potential move to Rangers back in the summer of 2020.
Rangers were busy in the summer of 2020 as Steven Gerrard pushed to win the Scottish Premiership title.
We saw Ianis Hagi and Jermain Defoe sign permanently whilst Calvin Bassey, Leon Balogun and Bongani Zungu arrived too with varying levels of success.
Defoe wasn’t the only striker signing though as Rangers also brought in Kemar Roofe and Cedric Itten.
Gerrard clearly felt that he needed more firepower and the Rangers boss was certainly backed.
Roofe helped fire Rangers to the title with 14 league goals whereas Itten wasn’t quite as involved.
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Rangers went in with a four-strong attack that season with Defoe, Roofe and Itten supporting Alfredo Morelos.
Everybody chipped in along the way with Rangers securing the league title – but that attack could have featured Ivan Toney…
Ivan Toney comments on Rangers transfer chance
Toney had been banging in the goals for Peterborough United, smashing 49 goals in 94 appearances for the Posh.
Unsurprisingly, Toney became a wanted man after that goalscoring form and Rangers were seemingly keen.
Toney has told Diary of a CEO that he did actually speak to other clubs before choosing Brentford – and Rangers were one of them.
Toney claims that he went up to Glasgow in order to discuss a move with then-Rangers boss Gerrard.
The 27-year-old is a boyhood Liverpool fan so the chance to play for Gerrard will have surely been very appealing.
However, Toney believed that he would be one of four strikers at Rangers, which would have been the case given the deals for Roofe and Itten.
Toney didn’t fancy that given that Rangers mostly played with one striker, believing that he was better off at Brentford.
“I did speak to other clubs,” said Toney. “I actually went up to Rangers. I spoke with the manager there, which was Steven Gerrard at the time. They had two strikers at the time and they were looking to get another one in, so that would have been like four strikers and the formation they played, the majority of the time, was one striker up top,” he added.
It’s hard to argue that Toney was wrong in that regard, as he has racked up 68 goals in 124 games for Brentford, becoming and England international.
Seeing Toney in action for Rangers would have been quite the sight but he wasn’t 100% sure of his playing time and his Brentford move has really paid off.