Comeback king the poster boy for FA's double standards

IVAN TONEY has spent the past eight months plastering his body in tattoos to help forget his gambling ban hell.

- Ryan Taylor

BIG-MATCH VERDICT 

Yet here on his long-awaited return to action, the more significant words were not written in ink. They were emblazoned across his chest.

Welcome to English football’s stomach-churning double standards. A broken system that is happy to endorse gambling and claim its poisonous cash but fall into its murky traps and you will be hung out to dry.

“I feel like a free man,” declared a stone-faced Toney in midweek.

He has not been held captive but the heartfelt statement was a damning reflection of the crippling mental struggles he has endured on his long-winding road to liberation.

A smartly crafted 19th-minute free-kick showed Toney’s goalscoring powers have evidently not waned during his gruelling search for salvation.