Brennan Johnson: Nottingham Forest to tie down Man Utd’s Plan B for Antony

Updated: 19 Jun 2022 15:46 BST
3 min read

Nottingham Forest have opened talks with Wales international winger Brennan Johnson, FootballTransfers can reveal.

The 21-year-old played a starring role for Forest in his first season in the first-team as they won promotion to the Premier League via the playoffs.

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Indeed, he showed incredible reliability to play every league fixture for Forest, including all four playoff matches, while he also featured prominently in an FA Cup run that saw them dump out Premier League sides Arsenal and Leicester before falling narrowly to Liverpool in the quarter-finals.

Johnson has been rewarded for his fine form, which saw him find the net 19 times in 53 matches in all competitions, with discussions over a new deal.

His contract is presently up in 2023 and there is an ambition by Forest to get things sorted and a deal over the line soon.

Tremendously, Johnson is now rated by FootballTransfers as being worth €11 million, having been worth just €0.2m at the start of the season.

Manchester United interest

In recent days, Johnson emerged as a surprise transfer target for Manchester United. Previously, he had been linked with Leeds and Newcastle.

The United Stand reports that Johnson has been earmarked as a potential Plan B to Ajax winger Antony, who has long been linked with a switch to Old Trafford, though particularly since it emerged that Erik ten Hag would become the Red Devils’ new manager.

Although such rumours have come out of the blue, Man Utd have had a habit of making surprise signings in the past, while their change of transfer policy this summer has suggested that they will move away from superstar arrivals and focus more on players who might be capable of improving their squad.

Johnson has shown a capacity to be one of these players with an outstanding season at Nottingham Forest, but the odds are that the Premier League newcomers will manage to retain him.