Son Heung-min full of praise for Brennan Johnson after latest cameo

Johnson’s 63rd-minute introduction helped Spurs fight back from a goal down to beat Crystal Palace 3-1 on Saturday and get their Champions League qualification hopes back on track.

It was a similar story against Brentford and Brighton earlier this year with the Welsh international beginning to flourish after his £47.5million move from Nottingham Forest in September.

Johnson scored once and laid on two assists during his first 11 appearances for the club, but his two assists against Palace mean he has six goal involvements in his last 11 outings for Ange Postecoglou’s team.

It was Johnson’s tenacity which made the leveller after he won back possession from Joachim Andersen before he got the better of Jefferson Lerma to tee up Timo Werner and he later set up Son for Spurs’ third goal.

“Strong man,” Tottenham captain Son told Spurs Play.

“That is what we need, especially the way we play. We want to play high, high intensity and who is coming from the bench has to make an impact. Brennan did and he did two amazing assists.

“I like this guy. I love this guy. I just want to help him as much as I can.

“Even when we start the game, I tell him, ‘just make sure you’re ready, you’ll make the difference. When you come on, you’ll make the difference,’ and that’s what we need.

“Brennan did a fantastic job and I just want to give him a big hug.

“The goals obviously he is missing but I am definitely sure, the way he works, working like this, the goals will come automatically, I am 100 per cent sure.”

Postecoglou echoed Son’s sentiments on Johnson, he said: “I thought Brennan was good, but I thought all of them were good.

“In those moments we work hard with our wide players to make sure they’re in the right areas and a couple of times we just weren’t when the ball was flashed across.

“Brennan did fantastically well to win back possession and when he’s played it across, it’s the other winger that’s there. From our perspective that’s a really important part because it’s not by accident.”

A slight worry for Spurs was substitute Pape Sarr seemingly in pain at full-time, but Postecoglou played down concerns.

He added: “Pape’s had a bit of a back issue since he got back from the Africa Cup of Nations. He’s been dealing with it and it’s getting better but it’s not sort of totally free, so it’s something we’re working on with him.”

A positive for Palace was Eberechi Eze’s goalscoring return after a hamstring injury and new boss Oliver Glasner preached patience after he brought him off in the 65th-minute.

“You have to take care. We cannot afford to lose him for more weeks again, so this was the reason,” Glasner revealed.

“I think the whole of England knows Ebs is a great player and he can decide games, but also we could see he does not have the rhythm because for these 65 minutes it was not maybe his highest level.

“It is normal because he came back from an injury.

“Now we work also with him that he will be able to play 95, 100 minutes on the highest level.”

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