Tottenham responds to Ange Postecoglou’s assessment of Johnson’s actions against Newcastle

Brennan Johnson was a key figure for Tottenham after his second-half introduction in the team’s 2-1 defeat at Newcastle on Sunday

It really should have been third time lucky for Tottenham at St James’ Park. On the end of painful 6-1 and 4-0 defeats on their last two visits to the north east, Ange Postecoglou’s side were impressive for large parts of the Newcastle United contest and had more than enough chances to win the game.

Putting Newcastle under pressure prior to Harvey Barnes opening the scoring with a well-taken finish, the visitors really upped the ante after the restart and managed to restore parity following Dan Burn’s own goal on 56 minutes. Having opportunities to win the game after the equaliser, it was Eddie Howe’s side who claimed all three points courtesy of Alexander Isak’s simple finish in the 78th minute.

Brennan Johnson was dropped for the game after two poor performances but he was introduced at the beginning of the second half as Postecoglou made a tactical change following Pape Matar Sarr’s booking. As he did do last term when he was was left out of the XI and named on the bench, notably against Brighton & Hove Albion and Crystal Palace, the ex-Nottingham Forest man came on and made an impact.

Not long after his introduction, the 23-year-old almost got an assist to his name with Odobert unable to convert his deflected cross at the back post when in a good position. Johnson kept on making life difficult for Newcastle United left-back Lloyd Kelly with his runs and he had a key role to play in the equaliser after calling Nick Pope into action.

The England goalkeeper did manage to stop the winger’s goal-bound effort going in, with Burn then lashing the ball high into the roof of his own net. Spurs were so much better for having Johnson on the pitch and certainly looked the most likely to go on and secure all three points.

James Maddison and Pedro Porro had both forced Pope into saves prior to Johnson having a glorious opening on goal after some neat footwork to get the better of Burn. The finishing touch was missing, though, as he shot high and wide of the target on the swivel in a good position in the area.

Had Spurs had one of injured duo Solanke or Richarlison available for selection then they may well have gone on to collect all three points. Johnson put in a number of good balls across the face of goal in his pitch time and Spurs desperately lacked that penalty-box striker in the middle of goal to put them away

Asked by football.london in his post-match press conference if Tottenham missed having a natural striker up front due to the whipped deliveries put across the six-yard box, Postecoglou said: “Yeah, potentially, but I still think even outside of that we just had some really good opportunities, a little bit more composure.

“Fair play to [Nick] Pope, I thought he had an outstanding game. But I thought we could have tested him a few more times with just some better decision-making. It’s not just the opportunities we did create.