Brennan Johnson: World Cup One to Watch
Excitement is starting to build all over the world of football as the 2022 FIFA World Cup is mere days away.
For the players, such huge tournaments are the biggest stages they can get to showcase their talents. Nowhere does this ring truer than for under-23 talents.
Therefore, we will be taking a look at a number of young talents who are primed to impress in Qatar this winter.
Today Neel Shelat joins us to discuss Brennan Johnson.
Career So Far
Brennan Johnson is eligible to play for the Welsh National Team thanks to his grandparents’ roots, but he was born in Nottingham, England in 2001.
He joined Forest’s academy aged eight, where he spent the rest of his youth career.
About 10 years later, he was making his professional debut as a late substitute in the 2019/20 Championship season opener for Nottingham Forest against West Bromwich Albion.
He would go on to make just eight appearances in all competition (only half of which were in the league) for the rest of the campaign, so he was sent out on loan to Lincoln City in League One for 2020/21.
With regular game time under his belt, Johnson started to impress as he made 43 league appearances and returned with 11 goals and 5 assists. He was mostly used as a winger in a 4-3-3 system but occasionally started in a midfield role too.
Johnson returned to Nottingham Forest for the 2021/22 season, which did not start well for the club as they found themselves rock bottom of the Championship in September. Chris Houghton was subsequently dismissed and Steve Cooper was appointed as the new head coach.
Even as Cooper experimented with different formations in search of the right system, Johnson remained a regular starter through this period.
Houghton used Johnson in a central role behind a striker, but Cooper restored him to a wing position in a 3-4-3 initially. A few weeks later, the coach tweaked the system to a 3-4-1-2 shape, where Johnson played on the right of the front two but had a lot of freedom to move out all the way to the touchline. On occasion, Cooper switched to a back-four with a 4-2-3-1 shape, and here too Johnson was used on the right.
The young Welshman enjoyed a real breakthrough season under the guidance of his countryman, as he returned with 18 goals and 10 assists in the Championship (including 2 playoff goals), which made him by far the most important player for his side in an attacking sense.
The step into the Premier League has proven difficult as he just has a couple of goals in over 1,000 minutes, but given the difference in quality between the two divisions, and the fact that his side are now battling relegation, the drop-off in his output is understandable.