Brennan Johnson champions momentum as Tottenham secure FA Cup progression with victory over Burnley
- Rob Fleming
- 6 January 2024
Brennan Johnson has urged Tottenham to keep building momentum after they progressed into the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Spurs were made to work hard by Burnley on Friday night, but eventually broke the visitors' resistance thanks to Pedro Porro's superb 78th-minute strike to make it 1-0.
It made it four wins in five matches for Tottenham and despite a plethora of unavailable players, Johnson is relishing the attacking philosophy being implemented by boss Ange Postecoglou.
"We're enjoying it a lot. You can tell by how we play on the pitch," Johnson said.
"We want to keep progressing individually and as a team we want to keep getting better.
"Before the game, the manager said, 'we're in two competitions, the Premier League and FA Cup, and we're at no point where we can slack off in this cup or play half-hearted.'
"We know even (here), we won 1-0 but it went to seven minutes of extra time and they pushed with everything.
"We have to be on it 100 per cent and play how we play every week. If we can keep building momentum in this cup and keep playing how we do in the Premier League, I think we have every chance (of winning silverware)."
Tottenham will discover their fourth-round opponents on Monday but for a long period of Friday's clash a replay at Turf Moor looked on the cards.
It took Porro's spectacular effort to finally break the deadlock and Johnson hailed his team-mate.
Johnson told ITV: "There was no luck about that. Everyone who watches him every week knows the quality he has, especially on the ball.
"I think sometimes he is too far out to shoot most weeks but he won the ball back and there weren't too many options.
"He has the quality. He shoots a lot in training, misses a lot but it came off and it was an unbelievable goal."
It was not a sorely positive night for Postecoglou with Giovani Lo Celso forced off early and, more worryingly, Ben Davies suffered a potential hamstring injury.
While Postecoglou hoped Lo Celso's withdrawal was "muscle fatigue," he was more downbeat about Davies, who will be assessed over the coming days.
There was better news on Micky van de Ven, after he returned following a two-month absence with a hamstring injury, but remained an unused substitute ahead of next weekend's trip to Manchester United.
"He's fine. The plan was to give him some game time but the way the game was going, we needed something up front to crack them open," Postecoglou added.
"We kept him on ice but he's trained this week, he was okay and will train fully (next week). He's available."
Burnley also have injury concerns ahead of hosting Luton on January 15 with Lyle Foster replaced with an unspecified issue, while Charlie Taylor hurt his shoulder.
Clarets boss Vincent Kompany explained: "We'll see. I hope it's not bad news.
"I can't tell you much more, but hopefully with that little bit of extra time before the next game, we'll have some good news."
