How Ivan Toney helped Portsmouth finally get the green light for Brentford swoop

The long-awaited return of Ivan Toney helped Pompey finally get their man.

That’s the admission of John Mousinho after Brentford this week sanctioned the loan switch of Myles Peart-Harris to Fratton Park.

The Blues have been pursuing the 21-year-old since the January window opened, yet were delayed by the attacker’s first-team duties with the Premier League club.

Peart-Harris has been on the bench for the Bees’ last 11 first-team squads, coming on as a substitute in five of them.

However, following FA Cup elimination and Toney’s goal-scoring return against Nottingham Forest last week after an eight-month betting ban, he was at last granted permission.

Mousinho told The News: ‘We have spoken for a couple of weeks about the difficulties of the January transfer window and Myles pretty much encapsulates that perfectly.

‘He’s a player who has been involved in the Premier League for the past few weeks, was on the bench at the weekend while we were playing Fleetwood, and before that played in both of the cup ties against Wolves.

‘He definitely was not available on January 1. There was the FA Cup to get through, there were returning suspensions, injured players coming back, all of those things meant Brentford weren't going to be letting him out early.

‘He’s a player we needed to wait patiently for - and we had to decide whether to wait for the right man we wanted into the building.

‘I think another factor was possibly the return of Ivan Toney as well, giving Brentford an extra boost, all of these factors you don’t see from the outside when coming into the transfer window.

‘I don’t know whether the Toney situation is pure speculation from me, but they are the sort of factors which sometimes do come into it because Myles had played up front for Brentford in some of those games.

‘That is a really good example of the multitude of complexities we’ve come across when trying to sign just one player.’

Peart-Harris made 47 appearances and scored six goals during a season-long loan with Forest Green Rovers last season.

And Brentford were keen for the ex-Chelsea youngster to again head out during the second half of the current campaign.

Mousinho added: ‘We had a really open conversation with Brentford and it became clear that, if circumstances change in terms of players returning, Myles was a player they’d like to get out.

‘They had loaned him to Forest Green last year and he did really well. The next step for him was logically to be a step up in League One - and I think that will suit us really well.’