Just days after The Athletic reported that Tottenham Hotspur had agreed a fee with Crystal Palace for the sale of forward Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace, the forward’s move across London has been finalised.
The 24-year-old, signed from Nottingham Forest in 2023, has not scored in the Premier League since August, having been restricted largely to a bench role as Tottenham’s first season under Thomas Frank has unfolded. He started just three of Tottenham’s last 16 league matches, although he did start a further four matches in the League Cup and Champions League in that time.
Despite that, only Richarlison and Micky van de Ven have scored more goals for Spurs this season, with Johnson having been the club’s top scorer in 2024-25, a season that ended with him scoring the winning goal in the Europa League final against Manchester United in Bilbao.
Spurs are clearly in the midst of a rebuild, but was this the right time to sell?
The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke and Elias Burke address the two sides of the argument…
Yes, it was time to cash in
Thomas Frank knows the importance of selling well. His Brentford tenure was built in part on selling players for the right price at the right time, a lesson that Tottenham could clearly learn.
Speaking at his press conference ahead of the Brentford game, Frank was asked about the importance of being “good sellers”. He could not have been clearer. “That’s key,” he said. “There are a lot of elements that we need to do well to be able to compete at the highest level. Part of it is being able to sell. The other top clubs… they are quite good at selling.”
Tottenham have rarely been good at selling. Traditionally, they have been good at extracting big fees in very specific circumstances: when they have a world-class player who is being pursued by one of the richest clubs in Europe. Take Dimitar Berbatov going to Manchester United in 2008, Gareth Bale to Real Madrid in 2013, Kyle Walker to Manchester City in 2017, or Harry Kane to Bayern Munich in 2023. In all four cases, they were able to negotiate a big fee.
Johnson scores his first goal of this season against Burnley in August (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
What Spurs have struggled with is sales that are not like that: when they have a prized asset and all the leverage in negotiations. In recent years, they have repeatedly clung on to players for too long, missing the moment to move them on, leaving them with players who have lost their edge and their market value.
So much of Spurs’ struggles in recent years were down to the fact that they hung on to players such as Dele, Danny Rose, Toby Alderweireld, Lucas Moura and Christian Eriksen for too long, rather than selling them when they were hot.
Which leads us to Brennan Johnson. He is a good player who has done well at Spurs. He joined at the age of 22, a few weeks after Kane was sold to Bayern. Johnson had big responsibilities from early on and scored five league goals in his first season. In his second year, he was the club’s top scorer, with 11 in the league, two in the cups, and another five in Europe. The last of those was the goal that will seal his legacy forever, turning in Pape Matar Sarr’s cross at the near post to win Spurs the Europa League.
But the fact is that Johnson has not been in the starting XI for much of this season. Mohammed Kudus is the clear first choice on the right wing. Johnson does not get much of a look-in on the left either.
Of course Spurs could have kept him and he could still have been useful when called upon, just like he was from the bench at Crystal Palace on December 28. But this is precisely the sort of situation where Spurs have tended to hang on to the player in the past, when they would be better off taking the money and reinvesting in someone better suited to their system. This time they have done well to take a different option.
Jack Pitt-Brooke
No, they still needed his goals
Brennan Johnson will not be easy to replace.
He’s the scorer of Tottenham’s most important goal in at least 17 years, and finished last season as the club’s top marksman across all competitions. While he’s not the same flying winger Spurs signed from Nottingham Forest in 2023, he’s developed into a reliable goalscorer with a rare and valuable ability to arrive in the right place at the right time in the box. In a squad short on goalscorers, Johnson’s ability to put the ball into the back of the net should not have been overlooked.
Having mostly seen him from the bench since the opening matches of the season, it’s easy to forget he started this term in a similar vein of form to that with which he finished the last. His goal on the opening day of the season, where he timed his run to perfection before calmly lifting his finish over Burnley goalkeeper Martin Dubravka, exemplified his progression into a bona fide goalscorer from out wide. The following week, he opened the scoring in the 2-0 win away to Manchester City, getting on the end of a wide cross from a quick attacking transition, the kind of football that suits him best, and that he will be hoping to play at Crystal Palace.
There has not been much to crow about for Spurs fans this season, but just the sight of Johnson has been enough to bring choruses of “Johnson again, ole ole”, including when he came on towards the end of Sunday’s win at Selhurst Park. In fact the travelling Spurs fans even sang his name (along with those of several former Spurs players) during Thursday evening’s 0-0 draw at Brentford as news of his imminent departure broke. The little reminders of that night in Bilbao may not put points on the board this season, but they are also not without merit.
Johnson wheels away after scoring in the Europa League final (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
With better squad construction, Johnson would have been an important squad player. He may not have played every week, but across four competitions, there would be plenty of opportunities for him to start and provide important contributions from the bench from both wings. He’d also be crucial injury cover for Kudus, who will now only be supported by Wilson Odobert (at least until Dejan Kulusevski returns from his long-term injury), a player who has produced his best displays from the left.
But with so many players in the squad capable of playing left wing (without entirely convincing), the evidence suggests Johnson, who is coming into his prime at 24, would not get the minutes he wants under Frank.
Unless Spurs invest in a top winger to immediately take the starting spot on the left, or Odobert translates his exciting cameos from the bench into consistent displays from the start, it could be a move that the club rues in the second half of the season. Having also lost Son Heung-min, Tottenham can ill-afford to not replace his goal threat.
Elias Burke