Boss Thomas Frank urged Gareth Southgate to hand Ivan Toney an England recall after his Brentford comeback.
The striker scored his third goal in four games since returning from his eight-month ban for breaching betting rules in Saturday’s 2-0 win at Wolves.
Christian Norgaard’s first-half header put the Bees on course for their first Premier League away win since October, moving them up to 14th.
This week, Frank said Toney – who has one cap – is likely to be sold in the summer but he also feels his star man deserves another chance with England ahead of Euro 2024.
He said: “I know what Ivan can bring and I think it’s something different England don’t have.
“Ivan played a fine game, not a top game but the strikers need to score goals.
“He scored again when he had to and he played with illness, he was ill Thursday, Friday and today.
“It shows everything about his mentality. He is unique.
“He has always been committed for the team, for the club and his team-mates.
“Who knows what is going to happen in the summer? What Ivan is very good at is being in the moment, right now, here, ready. That’s what he is focusing on.
“It would be great if he keeps going. He has all the qualities for it. We know we will create chances for him and big chances.”
Brentford should have won by more after wasting several first-half openings, with Neal Maupay the main culprit.
First, he allowed Jose Sa to save with just the goalkeeper to beat before Sa claimed his header from the resulting corner.
Mads Roerslev blazed over before Maupay missed another opening, shooting at Sa after working space well.
Wolves, who lost Matheus Cunha to a hamstring injury, struggled to get going and fell behind after 35 minutes when Norgaard shook off Craig Dawson to nod in Sergio Reguilon’s corner.
Mark Flekken turned Pedro Neto’s header onto the post just before the break and the forward saw his deflected strike rattle the upright soon after the interval.
From the corner, Brentford failed to clear and when Neto returned the ball Dawson nodded in, only for VAR to rule him narrowly offside.
It was the closest the hosts came to a recovery and Toney sealed the game with a fine cushioned finish from Vitaly Janelt’s cross with 13 minutes left.
“If I sat there last night and tried to imagine things going wrong for us it would have looked like something like that,” said Wolves boss Gary O’Neil.
“It started yesterday when I got the message Channy (Hwang Hee-Chan) was feeling his calf.
“We gave Brentford a little bit of impetus and an unbelievably bad error for the first goal which then gave them the game they wanted, when they take ages over everything,
“You don’t see many goals from chest height in the middle of the goal from three or four yards in the Premier League. From that moment I knew exactly how tough it would be to crack Brentford.
“When you watch that game, it looks like a really bad team performance. It was but there are really clear reasons why.
“Losing Matheus and Channy, the lads being below the level and two terribly bad errors for the goals.”
LA Galaxy v FC Dallas: Estevez hails visitors' improvement
Nico Estevez feels FC Dallas have made big strides as they prepare to embark on a tough three-game road stretch, starting with Wednesday's visit to the LA Galaxy.
Dallas are unbeaten in five games in all competitions (three wins, two draws) after only winning one of their previous nine (two draws, five defeats).
They visit Dignity Health Sports Park on Wednesday before going to Los Angeles FC and Minnesota United for their next two games in MLS.
Though Estevez was furious to see his team squander a 3-0 lead in a 3-3 draw with Real Salt Lake last Saturday, he is convinced things are moving in the right direction overall.
"We have to recover because we have three away games in a row. It's going to be challenging, we go to LA and then we go to Minnesota," Estevez said.
"It's going to be hard, but there's been improvement of the team against Austin, Houston, and now, against RSL. We're going in the right direction.
"We'll review things, we'll try to find the things we have to improve, but also it's about the mentality. Some of the mistakes we made were too much like youth players, we cannot do that at the pro level."
The Galaxy, meanwhile, ended a run of four straight draws by beating the Houston Dynamo 2-1 last time out, with Gabriel Pec scoring as they went within four points of the Western Conference summit.
"The team is getting better little by little. After three ties in a row, getting back home and getting a result, the feeling is very good," Pec said.
"The team has been doing great. Also, myself. I hope I can help my team moving forward."
PLAYERS TO WATCH
La Galaxy – Gabriel Pec
Pec has scored in his last four home games for the Galaxy, becoming the first player to do so since Javier Hernandez in 2022.
Only six players in club history have scored in five consecutive regular-season home appearances, with only three (Dejan Joveljic, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robbie Keane) doing so in the last 20 years.
FC Dallas – Asier Illarramendi
As well as being one of just three Dallas players with more than one goal to his name in MLS this year (two), Illarramendi has played 15 key passes, a tally only bettered by Paul Arriola (16). That is despite the Spaniard only making six league starts this season.
MATCH PREDICTION – LA GALAXY WIN
Dallas have collected just two points on the road this season (two draws, four defeats), tied for the fewest in MLS alongside Nashville SC.
They have just two wins in their last 17 regular-season road games, though one of those two victories came at the Galaxy last October.
A repeat is not expected on Wednesday, though, with the Galaxy unbeaten in six straight home matches (three wins, three draws). They have lost only one of their last 16 regular-season games at Dignity Health Sports Park (seven wins, eight draws).
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY
LA Galaxy – 47.5%
FC Dallas – 26.3%
Draw – 26.2%
Sporting Kansas City v Vancouver Whitecaps: Sartini wants aggressive approach from visitors
Vanni Sartini has asked Vancouver Whitecaps to take a more “aggressive” approach to beat Sporting Kansas City in MLS on Wednesday.
Vancouver sit seventh in the Western Conference with 19 points but after a run of six matches without a win in the competition, the teams below them are catching up.
The Whitecaps failed to mount a comeback in their latest defeat to Inter Miami, losing 2-1 at home, causing them to also lose ground on the teams above them.
Sartini expects a tough game against the side bottom of the table, saying: "It's a team that are behind us in the standings and we know how important it is to win those games to put more distance because we're still in a playoff position that we need to keep.
"It's always very hard to play there, the atmosphere, with the fans on top of you, it's very intense. We need to be good, and play our soccer and be even more aggressive.
"We need to score more goals and finalise our chances. We have six games that we could've won three of them and I think we deserved that, but we didn't win any of them.
"Of course, being more clinical is an issue and we need to be better. We're working on that."
Sporting KC have just 11 points having won only two of their league games so far this season.
They have failed to win any of their previous eight MLS matches, losing each of their last five.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Sporting KC – Alan Pulido
Pulido has scored five goals in four regular-season matches against the Whitecaps. Pulido’s 1.34 goals per 90 minutes against Vancouver is the second-best ratio of any Sporting Kansas City player against a single opponent (min. 300 minutes played versus opponent).
Vancouver Whitecaps – Ryan Gauld
Gauld scored the Whitecaps’ lone goal on Saturday from the penalty spot, his 10th penalty goal since the start of the 2022 season. Only three players in MLS have scored more goals from the spot over the last two-plus regular seasons than Gauld.
MATCH PREDICTION – SPORTING KANSAS CITY WIN
Sporting KC have won four of their six home matches against the Whitecaps (one draw, one defeat including playoffs) scoring at least three times in all four wins. Vancouver have totalled just three goals over the six matches combined.
However, Kansas City have lost five straight regular-season matches for the first time since April-May 2011. Sporting’s last losing streak of six or more league matches was a seven-match run in 2006.
Vancouver are winless in six straight MLS matches (three draws, three losses) after a 2-1 loss to Inter Miami on Saturday. The Whitecaps have totaled three goals in the six games after averaging 2.1 goals per match (17) in their first eight league matches this season.
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY
Sporting KC – 44.8%
Draw – 27.9%
Vancouver Whitecaps – 27.3%
Bellingham voted LaLiga Player of the Season
Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham has been voted LaLiga's Player of the Season after playing a pivotal role in leading the club to their 36th league title.
Bellingham edged out team-mate Vinicius Junior, Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann, Girona's Artem Dovbyk and Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski in votes cast by fans, club captains and a panel of experts.
He scored 19 goals and had six assists in 28 league games this season, tallying 23 goals and 12 assists in all competitions in his first campaign with Los Blancos.
Bellingham, who could not attend Tuesday's ceremony in Sardinia as he is preparing for the Champions League final at Wembley against his former club Borussia Dortmund, said he was honoured to have received the award.
"I would like to dedicate it to my team-mates, the coaching staff and, most importantly, to the fans of the best club in the world," he said in a message.
"It's a pleasure every time I play for this team. Hala Madrid!"
The England star also won the 2022-23 Bundesliga Player of the Season prize while playing for Dortmund before moving to Real for a fee of around €103million.
Earlier on Tuesday, Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl was full of praise for Bellingham.
"I know how strong Jude is and I know his personality very much, so he's an amazing player, an amazing character and of course, he will do everything to win that final," he said.
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