Tottenham’s Brennan Johnson was certainly a key player during Ange Postecoglou’s time in charge. Darren Bent has reservations about how successful he can be under Thomas Frank’s management, though.
Brennan Johnson, 24, has played an important squad role at Tottenham since his move to North London.
Spurs paid £47.5m (Sky Sports) to buy Johnson from Nottingham Forest in January 2024, so the jury is still out on his price tag. However, the rapid winger has popped up with some key goals already in his Spurs career, including the winner when they won the Europa League final against Manchester United last season.
The Wales international played regularly under Ange Postecoglou, so his summer exit may have stung. Last season, Postecoglou praised Johnson’s work rate when he came under fire for some criticism.
Johnson, like the rest of the Spurs squad, has been trying to impress Thomas Frank since his managerial appointment. In fairness, the wide man scored in back-to-back wins over Burnley and Manchester City to start the league season, but he dropped to the bench for last weekend’s victory over West Ham. He didn’t start Tuesday’s Champions League win over Villarreal either.
Brennan Johnson suits Ange Postecoglou better than Thomas Frank
According to Darren Bent, Spurs attacker Johnson was a “perfect” fit under Postecoglou, his previous club manager. However, he expects him to have more challenges under Frank this season.
Bent said via talkSPORT: “For Ange Postecoglou, someone like Brennan Johnson is perfect for the system he wants to play. All of a sudden, I don’t think Brennan, who did really well last year and scored some important goals for them, is a guaranteed starter.”
Johnson has lost his starting position on the left wing to summer signing Xavi Simons in the last two games, so it will be interesting to see if that continues.
The good news is that Spurs have plenty of fixtures this season with domestic and European matches to rotate, so we will be watching Frank closely to see how he juggles his options. In terms of the forward line, he’s got plenty of talented attackers available to him.
In the Spurs predicted XI to face Brighton this Saturday, Johnson is once again left out.
Brennan Johnson record under Ange Postecoglou
As you can see below, Johnson made decent attacking contributions as a wide player for Spurs under Postecoglou.
| Appearances | Goals | Assists | Yellow cards | Red Cards |
| 85 | 23 | 18 | 10 | 0 |
Even though he’s not a world-class technician, his movement and energy can be exceptional. The knack of scoring big goals in big games is priceless as well.
We agree with Bent that the Welshman could find it hard to nail down a permanent starting position within Frank’s system this season, partly down to the competition within the squad on the wings. However, he could still make plenty of key contributions over the course of a busy season as an impact player.
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