Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace takes new twist after confirmed news
Crystal Palace’s move to sign Tottenham star Brennan Johnson in the January window has been plunged into uncertainty after Thomas Frank admitted that he would like to keep him.
Johnson made history for Tottenham back in May as he scored the winning goal in their 1-0 Europa League final win over Man United to deliver some long-awaited silverware to the North London club.
The Wales international forward struggled to nail down a starting place at Spurs in his first season after a 2023 move from Nottingham Forest, but kicked on last season and looked set to continue to be a key man following his iconic goal.
Things have not worked out for him under Frank so far, however, with just six Premier League starts this season and four goals in 20 appearances.
Football Insider recently revealed that Palace are preparing to make an offer for Johnson with a January move away from Spurs in the offing, but that looks less likely now after Frank’s comments.
Frank wants Johnson to stay at Spurs next month
Johnson has only started one of Tottenham’s last five league games, while he failed to even appear off the bench in two of those against Fulham and Brentford respectively.
The former Forest winger is partly wanted by the Eagles because of Ismaila Sarr’s participation at AFCON with Senegal, while their attacking depth has already been lacking following a tough summer window.
Palace have seemed confident over thrashing out a move for Johnson in the new year, but Frank quashed rumours of Spurs being happy to let him leave while speaking to the media ahead of their game against Liverpool this weekend.
He said: “Overall, I’m happy with Brennan. He trained well today. We mentioned before that he has played some very good games on the right and [Mohammed] Kudus has come in, so that’s been a little bit of bigger competition there, not that he can’t play to the left.
“In general I’m happy with Brennan. We haven’t done too much in terms of [preparation for moving] players out. I think he’s a big part of what we have when we’re playing a lot of games.”
“Yeah, I think we will be playing a lot of games so it’s important to have enough [players] to shoot with. I will not speak about Brennan, but I think any player that maybe does not play all the time will probably always have a thought about that [leaving in January], but we need more than 11 players.”
Palace may have to move on to new January targets
Frank’s new quotes certainly do not bode well for Palace, with Johnson seemingly their main attacking target heading into January.
The Wales international is still seemingly part of his manager’s plans, and while a move is never completely out of the question, it does now seem pretty unlikely that he departs North London.
Football Insider revealed last week that Palace have set their sights on a loan deal for Oscar Bobb, with the Man City starlet finding minutes hard to come by this season.
City are prepared to let him leave in search of increased game-time, and so it may well be the case that the Eagles now fully focus on a deal for Bobb, with Johnson still in Frank’s plans at Tottenham.