Although Brennan Johnson will always be remembered by the Tottenham Hotspur faithful for being the answer to a most beautiful trivia question by scoring the game winning goal in Bilbao to boost Tottenham to a Europa League title over Manchester United, the consensus this January was that now was the best time to sell the Welsh international.
Johnson had been doing nothing all season long for Spurs despite the club's attacking woes, as the right wing position had just been filled by summer signing Mohammed Kudus - the new best player on the team not playing the center back position.
Thomas Frank had previously battled Tottenham on the transfer market while at Brentford for Johnson's signature but was outgunned by the bigger club with more money. Therefore, now with Johnson at Tottenham, there was a feeling among the Spurs fans that if anyone could get the most out of the mercurial goal poacher on the wings, then it would be the (not so) great Dane.
Tottenham made the right move but still screwed it up
Instead, Frank realized pretty quickly that Johnson did not have the all around skill set, athleticism, speed, creativity, or dribbling ability to be a Premier League winner in spite of his finishing chops and goal scoring instincts.
So Spurs rightfully sold him for 35 million pounds to Crystal Palace this January transfer window, striking at perhaps the only time Johnson would have retained meaningful transfer value. And they were vindicated by how poorly Johnson has been playing for Palace, with many Eagles supporters already calling the young right winger a flop of a signing.
Yet despite all logic pointing towards the Brennan Johnson sale being the right move made by Tottenham Hotspur, including the player's own ineffective displays with his new team, you can leave it up to the Lilywhites to somehow spin a negative in all this.
Because somehow, Spurs have brought a negative angle out of the Johnson transfer. 35 million pounds for a bad player is a great deal, except now Spurs have no right wingers besides Wilson Odobert, who made a successful conversion to the position. But Tottenham signed no wingers this January window to replace Johnson when they already needed a winger coming into the window - and now need one doubly so with superstar Mohammed Kudus injured and Dejan Kulusevski still not back.
Tottenham are somehow worse off without Johnson because they failed to reinvest that money or show any legitimate transfer interest in a player besides Antoine Semenyo - a man who had already rejected Spurs before the winter window even began.