It is a bit laughable looking back at some of the takes after Tottenham Hotspur sold Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace for about 35 million pounds, because there were legitimately Palace fans - and somehow even a few Spurs supporters - who were cooking the Lilywhites for selling the young right winger to a local rival.
Johnson, in fairness, did score quite a few goals in the Premier League last season and was thus technically Spurs leading goal scorer. But it says something that if even Thomas Frank does not want to use you in a rotation on the wings, you are probably cooked.
The biggest problem with Johnson is that despite his heroics in the Europa League Final and his ability to come up with uncanny tap in goals as a winger, he could do literally nothing else right. Who else remembers how Liverpool ran circles around him, almost daring him to pass the ball and targeting his poor technical ability for easy turnovers?
Brennan Johnson was always this way
Well, it has taken approximately two weeks for Crystal Palace themselves to swiftly realize that they probably paid too much money for Brennan Johnson, as even 35 million pounds, which is not a particularly egregious amount of money in and of itself, was too much for a winger who mostly ghosts.
Johnson has started for Crystal Palace in three Premier League games against Newcastle United, Aston Villa, and Sunderland. And he has been poor in all of them. At least against the Magpies, Johnson had a couple of key passes and dribbles completed. But he did nothing but take aimless shots in a 0-0 draw with Villa and was somehow even worse against the Black Cats, accruing literally no meaningful statistics in a full 90 minutes.
Tottenham fans are certainly no strangers to a goose egg performance from Johnson in which he offers no attacking threat, creates nothing, takes nobody on, and looses the ball cheaply. Johnson's now had back to back 90 minutes games like that for Crystal Palace, and fans are starting to realize they were cheated out while Spurs laugh all the way to the bank with 35 million pounds in tow.
Of course, Spurs cannot laugh too much, since they have gotten pretty much everything else wrong this January besides the Johnson sale, as they then spent 40 million euros on Conor Gallagher. But with Spurs losing a ton and Thomas Frank still not sacked, Spurs supporters have to take all the wins they can get.