Just days after The Athletic reported that Tottenham Hotspur had agreed a fee with Crystal Palace for the sale of forward Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace, the forward’s move across London has been finalised.

The 24-year-old, signed from Nottingham Forest in 2023, has not scored in the Premier League since August, having been restricted largely to a bench role as Tottenham’s first season under Thomas Frank has unfolded. He started just three of Tottenham’s last 16 league matches, although he did start a further four matches in the League Cup and Champions League in that time.

Despite that, only Richarlison and Micky van de Ven have scored more goals for Spurs this season, with Johnson having been the club’s top scorer in 2024-25, a season that ended with him scoring the winning goal in the Europa League final against Manchester United in Bilbao.

Spurs are clearly in the midst of a rebuild, but was this the right time to sell?

The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke and Elias Burke address the two sides of the argument…

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Yes, it was time to cash in

Thomas Frank knows the importance of selling well. His Brentford tenure was built in part on selling players for the right price at the right time, a lesson that Tottenham could clearly learn.

Speaking at his press conference ahead of the Brentford game, Frank was asked about the importance of being “good sellers”. He could not have been clearer. “That’s key,” he said. “There are a lot of elements that we need to do well to be able to compete at the highest level. Part of it is being able to sell. The other top clubs… they are quite good at selling.”

Tottenham have rarely been good at selling. Traditionally, they have been good at extracting big fees in very specific circumstances: when they have a world-class player who is being pursued by one of the richest clubs in Europe. Take Dimitar Berbatov going to Manchester United in 2008, Gareth Bale to Real Madrid in 2013, Kyle Walker to Manchester City in 2017, or Harry Kane to Bayern Munich in 2023. In all four cases, they were able to negotiate a big fee.

Johnson scores his first goal of this season against Burnley in August (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

What Spurs have struggled with is sales that are not like that: when they have a prized asset and all the leverage in negotiations. In recent years, they have repeatedly clung on to players for too long, missing the moment to move them on, leaving them with players who have lost their edge and their market value.

So much of Spurs’ struggles in recent years were down to the fact that they hung on to players such as Dele, Danny Rose, Toby Alderweireld, Lucas Moura and Christian Eriksen for too long, rather than selling them when they were hot.