Ok guys. Only worldies count as goals now. I’ll adjust and make sure I observe that from here on.
-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Player Brennan Johnson
- Thread starter PapeMasterclass
- Start date
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
Great post - bang on the money.
Jesus is nowhere near as big a deal as Brenaldo (TM)Jesus Christ.
That's so well done lolJesus Christ.
Last season, his first with a new club/manager/style (and also the first for the club with said manager/style), he produced 15 goal involvements in the PL. This meant he was directly involved in +20% of the goals scored in our joint 2nd most prolific season since 1984-85. It also meant that he was in the top 25 players in G+A.
I really don't know how many times that has to be pointed out. In addition to that output (again, goals are the way matches are scored lest anyone forget) he's always tracked back well and contributed significantly off the ball.
The only thing he doesn't do at a high level is dribble at players, and semi-regularly he's guilty of a heavy touch.
I think people have also lost touch of what a £50M player is in the current market. If he produces the form from yesterday consistently across the season he'll be top 10 in G+A (where I've bet he'll be) and pushing, if not in, the top 5. It would mean hes basically taken over Son's place in the attacking heirarchy. At 23 years old. In today's market, that would make him a £75M+ player.
He was definitely not brought in as a squad player. Since he was bought he's played significantly more minutes at RW than any other player at the club. He was bought to be the present and future of that position.
It's how the market is. A young British player that's a full International is never going to be cheap. I don't see him as someone who was brought in to go straight into the starting 11 without any questions asked. We surely brought him in for the potential he has, as he's nowhere near the finished product. Obviously I could be and probably am wrong.
Exactly, and imo as much as this will sound harsh, Sonny’s complete lack of 1v1 play this year has exposed Johnno a bit. He’s ideally the inside forward who can run into space and provide end product on overloads, what he’s not good at is being relied upon as the 1v1 winger and final third controller.
I am beginning to realize that while there are good and bad players, most professionals of a certain standard aren’t necessarily amazing or shit, it’s a matter of their profile relating to a system and the players around them.
Not a chance he was brought in to be a squad player. Hev was brought here to push for starts and that’s what he’s doing.
I might get wrong here, but does anyone else think that some of the early season hate piled on him was down to the fact he reminded people of Jermaine Jenas?
NOT the colour, but just his slightly languid, gangly appearance... and the fact he came from Forest...
Jenas often flattered to deceive, and always felt like he thought was a better player in his head than he actually was!
I think a bit of that rubbed off in people's minds about Johnson, but honestly, it couldn't be further from the truth!
NOT the colour, but just his slightly languid, gangly appearance... and the fact he came from Forest...
Jenas often flattered to deceive, and always felt like he thought was a better player in his head than he actually was!
I think a bit of that rubbed off in people's minds about Johnson, but honestly, it couldn't be further from the truth!
Bump.Well-written and fair perspective on Johnson’s first year at Spurs here:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/57...ottenham-position/?source=user_shared_article Assessing Brennan Johnson’s first year at Tottenham – has he been a success?
This summer, Tottenham Hotspur have signed a centre-forward (Dominic Solanke), two left-wingers (if you count Timo Werner as well as Wilson Odobert) and two very talented 18-year-old midfielders (Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall).
But there has been no new right-sided attacker. The plan was always for Brennan Johnson, who has started both of Spurs’ opening Premier League games, to begin the season as the first-choice right-winger, sharing minutes with Dejan Kulusevski.
To some Tottenham fans, this is a source of frustration. They would rather see a ready-made superstar in that role, someone who can come straight in and win games on their own. Johnson has almost become a victim of the club’s reluctance to upgrade from him. The team look well set for a second season under popular head coach Ange Postecoglou but Johnson has become a target for the grumbling of a minority.
But that view ignores the reasons the 23-year-old Wales international is so popular with Postecoglou and why he has become such an important part of his Spurs team.
Ultimately, Johnson gives Postecoglou what he wants from a winger. In the Australian’s structured positional game, he asks at least one winger to stay high and wide, stretching the play and creating space infield for a midfielder or ‘inverted’ full-back to exploit. And when the ball is on the far side of the pitch, the idea — very broadly — is for the opposite winger to attack the back post to potentially convert a low cross.
And there is no question that Johnson dutifully follows Postecoglou’s instructions to the letter.
There is much to be said for Kulusevski as a footballer but he is not especially fast, he is very left-footed, and his instincts are generally to come inside towards the ball.
Kulusevski is a brilliant technical player but often leaves you with the impression he is an individualist trying to find his way in a coordinated, synchronised world. Johnson, as well as his reliability, availability and defensive efforts, offers a clear interpretation of what their manager wants.
This became clear last season as Johnson settled in and delivered respectable numbers for his first year with Spurs. It was not easy moving from Nottingham Forest, with a big price tag, at the very end of the window when the season had already been underway for three weeks.
The plan was to be patient and ease him but early injuries to Ivan Perisic and Manor Solomon left Tottenham short in wide areas and Johnson ended up playing more than was envisioned. He started 13 straight games across all competitions between early November and late January, and by the end of that run he looked low on confidence.
It took a spell on the bench to revive Johnson’s season. He started coming on as a second-half substitute and looked far more relaxed and comfortable, running at tired full-backs and turning games in Spurs’ direction.
On January 31, he came on at half-time with Tottenham losing 1-0 at home to Brentford. But he was soon there, attacking the far post, turning in Werner’s cross and putting his team 2-1 up. They went on to win 3-2.
Ten days later, Spurs hosted Brighton, again went behind early on, and Johnson came on just after the hour. When he timed his far-post run, he met Son Heung-min’s cross to score a 96th-minute winner. It was one of the moments of the season for Tottenham. And then when they were trailing at home again, this time to Crystal Palace a few weeks later, Johnson won the ball back, burst past two defenders and drove in one of those low crosses, from which Werner equalised. Spurs went on to win, 3-1.
After that game, Postecoglou said those moves — a low cross finished off at the far post — were not happening “by accident”. This was the reward for months of hard training. And it was becoming clear how Johnson fitted into the Postecoglou plan.
The manager also praised how Johnson was “understanding better the demands of the position, which is a bit different to what he was used to”. At Forest, especially in their 2021-22 promotion season, Steve Cooper gave his countryman the freedom to attack how he wanted when they were in possession. Coming to Spurs was a different challenge.
By the end of last season, Johnson was a regular for Tottenham, starting 10 of the final 12 games, even moving out onto the left at the end when Son played through the middle.
Johnson finished with a decent haul of five goals and 10 assists. Only Son had more goal contributions for Spurs in the Premier League. You could even argue Johnson should have registered 11 assists, given that one of his classic low crosses was bundled into the net by Luton Town’s Issa Kabore on March 30, with Werner lurking just behind him, but passes turned in by defenders for own goals do not count as assists.
Only Ollie Watkins (13) and Cole Palmer(11) got more Premier League assists than Johnson last season.
You can see from these graphics how dangerous he’s been from that area near the byline.
Yet it still feels now, at the start of Johnson’s second season in north London, as if there is far more to come.
Anyone who saw him in action for Forest knows what an exciting innovative player he can be under the right conditions. And if he is to secure that place in the Spurs team for this season, Johnson will need to show the confidence that is a cause and a consequence of scoring goals. He has all the ability required to embarrass defenders but often looks reluctant to do so.
Johnson has had a few bright moments already in the opening two games.
Against Leicester, he nearly put Spurs ahead early on with a clever volley that was well saved by Mads Hermansen. Soon after, he got on the end of a James Maddison free kick and drove it straight across the face of goal, inches away from being a clever assist. And then on Saturday against Everton, it was Johnson who started the move which led to the game’s opener, driving forward down the right, into the box, and combining with Maddison and Kulusevski, who eventually set up Yves Bissouma.
Like many attacking players at this stage of a season, it feels as if an early goal or two is exactly what Johnson needs. But if he starts well and develops more of that confidence he exudes at his best, then he can progress to another level over the next nine months, not just the perfect executor of the manager’s plans but a consistent match-winner too.
Do that, and the debate about his place in the side will move on to somebody else.
BrennaldinhoBJ without social media:
Funny that you mention goal posts, as he was denied a 5th goal by unluckily hitting one
