Brennan Johnson Joins Everton in Premier League Swap
Brennan Johnson has completed a four-year move to Everton, just eight months after Crystal Palace paid a reported club-record £35 million to prise him from Tottenham. In a rare Premier League swap, Dwight McNeil has gone the other way to Selhurst Park, with two careers in need of a reset crossing on the same day.
Neither arrives with a highlight reel from last season. Johnson’s stint in south London never caught fire: 26 games in all competitions, no goals, no spark, and plenty of frustration for a fanbase that expected far more from a marquee signing. McNeil’s campaign at Everton told a similar story. Once billed as a future star at Burnley, the 26-year-old also failed to score, drawing a blank in 25 appearances.
That underwhelming output became prime talk-show material.
On talkSPORT, former Tottenham midfielder Jamie O’Hara and ex-Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor tore into the numbers as the swap broke live on air.
“I like Dwight McNeil,” O’Hara said. “Brennan Johnson has been a myth for a few seasons. He didn’t do it at Spurs. He hides in games.”
Agbonlahor picked up the thread, homing in on the lack of end product from both wide men. “You look at their output last season,” he said, pointing to the barren goals and assists columns. “It’s a bit like ‘you give us him and we’ll give you him!’”
The tone turned even sharper as the pair joked about the deal. O’Hara signed off with a brutal punchline: “We’ll give you crap, we’ll give you crap back!”
The clip hit Instagram and spread quickly. Johnson did not let it slide.
The Wales international dropped a cold, eight-word reply in the comments: “Won more than both of these put together.” No emojis. No softening. Just a reminder of his medal count.
With the exchange going viral, O’Hara moved to clarify his stance on X the following morning. He argued that the short clip stripped out the nuance of the full discussion.
“This [is] the [problem] when you only listen to a clip and not full story,” he wrote. “We were talking about Brennan and McNeil’s stats from last season which were CRAP not that they were bad players. I’m a fan of McNeill and also said Brennan has all the attributes but he would admit his season was crap.”
The noise around the deal will not fade quickly, but Johnson now walks into a different kind of pressure on Merseyside. Everton have backed him with a long contract and a prominent role at the Hill Dickinson Stadium. At 25, he needs to turn raw attributes into ruthless output, and David Moyes will demand exactly that.
McNeil faces his own reckoning in south London. Palace offers a new dressing room, a new system, and a chance to rediscover the incisive left foot that once made him one of the league’s most intriguing young wingers. If he can tap back into that Burnley form, Selhurst Park could feel like a rebirth rather than a sideways move.
There will be no long wait to see who settles faster. The fixture list has delivered instant drama: Everton vs Crystal Palace on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season. Two wingers, two fresh starts, and an immediate shot at proving they were never “crap” in the first place.
