What Does Brennan Johnson Offer?

Just over one year ago, Brennan Johnson scored the decisive goal as Tottenham Hotspur won the 2025 UEFA Europa League, beating Manchester United 1–0.

That was a fitting end to the 2024/25 season for Johnson who notched up 18 goals in 51 games, largely from a right-wing position.

He played right-wing that night, too, in a 4-3-3 ahead of Pedro Porro at right back and as part of a three-man attack which featured Dominic Solanke as the central striker and Richarlison in the left-wing (ish) role he performed for us.

Under Ange Postecoglou, he was released to play forward by (a) kamikaze defensive tactics and (b) a hard-working central midfield trio of Yves Bissouma, Pape Sarr and Rodrigo Bentancur.

At Everton, he’ll certainly benefit from a hard-working central midfield trio (whomever Moyes ends up picking), but, as we know, we are yet to find a new right-back and Moyes values defence more than the man Spurs fans call "Imposter-coglou".

Assuming (safely?) we get a right-back (Rico Lewis, Brooke Norton-Cuffey, Djed Spence or Alistair Johnston etc) then Johnson can reprise a similar role in the side as he did in that very productive season for Spurs.

Before his €55m move to Spurs on the 1st September 2024, he’d been in really good form for Nottingham Forest, too.  The performance metric he stood out for was ball carrying / distance — essentially meaning he can carry the ball at pace from deep in his own half into the attacking third. 

What hindered him initially at Forest under Steve Cooper was that, having carried the ball into a dangerous area, he then also topped the charts for having the fewest passing options. To put it another way, having broken forward at pace, he was on his own. His goal contributions improved as Forest spent heavily on better quality teammates and the evolving tactics allowed for more teammates to break alongside him, too.

Moyes is obviously a pretty conservative coach, but a front three of Thierno Barry, Tyrique George and Johnson is not short of pace.  Indeed, Johnson is not unlike, say, Landon Donovan who did really well (albeit very briefly) under Moyes first time around. There are maybe some similarities with Kevin Mirallas, too.

Whatever the case, it has been a really long time since we’ve posed that sort of threat running in behind. This completely changes the dynamics of matches, since the opposition know they cannot risk a high line against that sort of pace. In turn, it forces opposition teams to defend deeper and commit fewer men forward.

Hopefully his pace on the flanks will be supplemented by (at least) a new right-back and maybe Iliman Ndiaye will stay or we’ll get Grealish in on loan, too (both of whom are much better technically and offer a different sort of threat).  Barry may yet be upgraded as well.

I suppose the worry is: why is a player signed for €55m less than two years ago now joining us for less than half that?  And why is he being sold for even less than he was bought for by Palace on 2nd January of this year (€40m)?

I can’t see any suggestion he has “problems” (i.e. drugs, porn, gambling or alcohol etc) and his fitness seems to be good too.  It seems more a case that he excelled in a Spurs 4-3-3 but struggled in the 4-3-4 / 5-2-2-1 that Glasner was wedded to at Palace.  He also plays in pretty much the same position as Ismaila Sarr, a man who got 21 goals in 45 games for Palace last season. 

All I can conclude is that Johnson was an unusually poorly thought through purchase for Palace, a player they didn’t need and couldn’t accommodate in the First XI.

We, on the other hand, are crying out for pace on the flanks in a much more conventional 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 type of formation.  On that basis, I’m expecting good things of Johnson – and I’m looking forward to seeing which right-back he is paired with.  Given Johnson’s characteristics, I think the ideal choice would be Rico Lewis, but that’s another article altogether.