Spurs wanted to sign £55m star for Ange but ended up with Brennan Johnson.
It’s been a hectic start to the season for Tottenham Hotspur this year.
Ange Postecoglou’s side didn’t get off to the best of starts with a draw against Leicester City and losses to Newcastle United and Arsenal, but in the last couple of weeks, things have turned around.
Following their dramatic victory over Coventry City in the League Cup, the North Londoners are now on a four-game win streak, with their most impressive coming on Sunday afternoon as they dismantled a sorry Manchester United team at Old Trafford.
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There were several stand-out performers on the day, but one of them, Brennan Johnson, has become the face of the club’s impressive turnaround this month, and interestingly, the club almost signed someone else before they picked him up last summer.
Brennan Johnson’s Spurs career
After a stellar campaign with Nottingham Forest in the 22/23 season, in which he scored ten goals and provided three assists in 44 appearances, Spurs spent around £47.5m on Johnson in an exciting deadline day deal last summer.
Brennan Johnson for Tottenham-1
However, he didn’t get off to the best of starts in North London, and by the time Christmas Day rolled around, the Welshman had a rather paltry haul of three assists and a single goal in 12 league appearances.
Fortunately, things quickly turned around for the Nottingham-born ace, as with more game time came a better level of output, and by the season’s end, he had racked up a reasonable tally of five goals and ten assists in 34 appearances, equating to a goal involvement on average every 2.26 games.
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This season has already been full of ups and downs for the 23-year-old. Even though it’s just early October, he endured a slump in form, during which he deactivated his Instagram account, but has now come out the other side as one of the most in-form wingers in the country.
In the last four games, Johnson has found the back of the net in each one and now looks like a real threat every time he has the ball at his feet, which isn’t something that can be said of the player they almost signed before him last summer.
4️⃣ in 4️⃣ for Brennan! That Micky assist though… pic.twitter.com/qvxZUvmL0X — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 29, 2024
Spurs almost signed Jeremy Doku
Yes, before he made his way to Manchester City, Spurs were one of several English clubs chasing Belgian winger Jeremy Doku last summer.
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According to a report from the Independent in mid-August 2023, the Lilywhites were named as one of the Premier League sides very keen on landing the then-21-year-old’s signature, who had just come off a reasonably impressive season for Ligue 1 outfit Stade Rennais, in which he scored seven goals and provided four assists in 35 games.
However, just a week later, City paid a whopping £55.4m for the youngster’s signature, and while he admitted that it was the chance to work under Pep Guardiola that led him to the Etihad, we’d be willing to bet that the inflated price is one of the reasons Daniel Levy and Co stepped away from the deal.
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Now, that is not to say that the dynamic “diamond”, as dubbed by Kevin de Bruyne, isn’t a talented player; he obviously is, but considering the £7.9m difference between his price and Johnson’s, it could be argued that the North Londoners got the better deal.
For example, while he had one simply sensational league game against Bournemouth in which he scored once and provided four assists, the Borgerhout-born gem ended his first campaign in England with a haul of six goals and 11 assists in 43 appearances, which equates to an average of a goal involvement every 2.52 games, which is slightly worse than what the Spurs ace could muster.
