Ivan Toney breaks silence amid claims he was 'humiliated' by Thomas Tuchel in England's defeat to Senegal

The striker had to wait until the 88th minute to play against Senegal.

England striker Ivan Toney appeared angry on Tuesday night after spending much of their 3-1 defeat to Senegal on the bench, but he is clearly happy to be home with his family after a difficult international break.

Prior to games against Andorra and Senegal, an ecstatic Thomas Tuchel justified his decision to restore Toney to his England squad.

“We follow him closely, like all the players on our list, same for Ivan,” he told me. “We watched him a lot; he made huge contributions and scored crucial goals in vital games, and he won a major title with his team, the Asian Champions League.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to see him live in Saudi, so we took the opportunity to fly him into our camp and watch him in the group, see his personality and his quality.”

Tuchel failed to deploy Toney in their World Cup qualifier against Andorra and limited the Al Alhi attacker to only five minutes in their 3-1 loss to Senegal, despite promising to battle with Harry Kane and Ollie Watkins.

Tuchel surprised many by bringing on Chelsea winger Noni Madueke in the 70th minute, as cameras went to Toney, who appeared frustrated and despondent.

Many people who watched the game expressed their opinions, including journalist Oliver Holt, who said, “I don’t understand why Tuchel opted to humiliate Ivan Toney the way he did. “Not a good look.”

Toney broke his social media blackout the day after the game in Nottingham, posting a picture of his family to Instagram. He captioned the photo, “Back with the troublemakers [love heart emoji].”

Speaking with ITV after the game, Tuchel explained his reasoning for Toney’s late introduction, implying that the forward may have to adjust to limited game time due to his particular role.

“First of all it was more than three minutes,” he informed me. “Second of all I think that Ivan is a specialist for exactly these situations.”

Tuchel continued: “We generated a lot of chances with Gibbs-White, Ebs [Eberechi Eze], Morgan Rodgers, and Jude in flowing positions.

“I believe Ivan is most effective when we have a lot of balls in the box, which was the situation today, so we prepared him after 80 minutes.

“Then we scored and they took the goal away and it took a little while longer than we wanted but that’s what he can give – presence in the box and a goal later in the match.”

After the game, former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane predicted that Toney would be “fuming” with England’s manager.

“The other subs had a bit of an impact, better than the other day [against Andorra], so that’s a bit of a plus,” he told ITV Sports. “But if you’re Toney and you’re getting three, four, five minutes, do you know what you’d be fuming.”

Ian Wright added: “I can only assume he’s watched him all week; he didn’t look to bring him on till that late, and I’m not sure what he’s seen in training that he doesn’t like up to this point.

“I was very surprised to see him not come on, especially when we saw Morgan Gibbs-White and Morgan Rogers come on, I would be disappointed if I was him but you’ve got to keep going.”