Ivan Toney: How close Celtic came to signing Brentford and England hitman
The 27-year-old striker, who is now an England internationalist and one of the English Premier League’s top scorers with Brentford, was heavily linked with Celtic in 2019 and 2020 while playing for Peterborough United. He eventually moved to the Bees, where his career has taken off, but it could have been a different story had Lennon managed to lure him north. "Ivan Toney before he went to Brentford. I was really interested in him,” said Lennon, who was manager of Celtic for a second spell between 2019 and 2021. “We were close to getting him and he's gone on to do brilliant things.”
Lennon also revealed that he admired some players across the city at Rangers but never entertained the thought of moving for any of them. I definitely didn't want to sign anyone from the blue side of Glasgow!” Lennon added when speaking about Celtic vs Rangers Odds for Boylesports. “They had some good players like [Nikica] Jelavic, Steven Naismith and Steven Davis - they were players that I begrudgingly admired.”