Brennan Johnson

[Blues Mahoney]

According to most sources Pickford is on 150K, Tarkowski and Braithwaite 120K, KDH on 90K, Mykolenko, Garner and Keane on 80K. These are our top earners.

Brennan Johnson will be on somewhere between 100 and 110K. With 4,5 years left on his contract he would never accept to move with a wage cut.

If its correct that McNeil was on 25K as most sources says and we give Johnson a 4 year contract while McNeil only had 1 left the total extra outlay on salaries amount to approximately 20 M.

If he fails at Everton - he will be impossible to sell as no other clubs in and around or below us in the PL has players on 100K or over. Lets hope he makes it - its a huge risk...

It's a lot isn't it, there's a few in the squad who will want to be near that figure now. Risky business.

[TrevorSteven]

It's a lot isn't it, there's a few in the squad who will want to be near that figure now. Risky business.

I agree

[brap2]

Think the recruitment team have pulled of an absolute blinder here.

McNeil just isn't a player that was going to contribute for us. He was basically a body in the squad, taking up space.

Even if Johnson is fairly decent, it'll be a huge uptick for us just from a contribution perspective. If we can help him rediscover his best form, even better.

What if he’s a body taking up space and 3x the wage on 3x the contract length?

[Bluedylan1]

What if he’s a body taking up space and 3x the wage on 3x the contract length?

What if the sky falls in tomorrow?

He fits a profile we didn't have so he offers something different and much needed in the group of wide players, and he's replaced a player that offered nothing to no-one.

As I said, even if he's just decent and mildly successful we've had much the better of the deal. I don't think we'd find it impossible to offload him in a season or two, if necessary either.

[brap2]

What if the sky falls in tomorrow?

He fits a profile we didn't have so he offers something different and much needed in the group of wide players, and he's replaced a player that offered nothing to no-one.

As I said, even if he's just decent and mildly successful we've had much the better of the deal. I don't think we'd find it impossible to offload him in a season or two, if necessary either.

What if it rains quid coins?

HE offered nothing to no-one.

I agree, he’s a profile I really like in a prem wide player to be honest but please do not kid yourself - we are taking the risk. for a player to be one of your top earners for the next 3-4 years they should be better than just decent tbh. Who on earth do you think wants a busted flush on £100k+ a week if we - a shite side - deem him not good enough? There’s only so many Evertons unfortunately.

I hope he will be successful but this isn’t evidence of good strategy it’s…a gamble on a player surely nobody wanted because he was available with no outlay. For whatever reason we are still behaving like weird dodgy duck and dive market traders. Give you one of these if you’ve any old shite to throw in?

[Cods]

Do players only want wage increases to match players in their own squad, not other squads?

(I take the point that is more comparable and perhaps easier to argue this point at one's own club)

Why wouldn't players trade exorbitant wages for game time at clubs more at their level, especially in the case of Johnson or Grealish where they'd been on the bench and/or not performing. Couldn't they have agreed a cut to get out? If they're hungry why not?

Our projected growing revenues should be able to support more players towards 100kpw than previous seasons. Our SCR ratio as at 2025/26 was estimated to be at 77%, somewhat below the 85% 'maximum', and we've had some big earners like Gana (120kpw) and Seamus (55kpw) (and Doucoure and DCL earlier) leave to allow for it.

We've now got lower earning youngsters (Röhl, George, Hackney, Dibling, Barry, KDH, Aznou) throughout the squad as well replacing these bigger earners, so we've likely got some wiggle room.

I think we're positioning ourselves pretty well to accomodate the new SCR rules. The messaging Moyes foreshadowed ("we've got to be more like Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton") makes sense. We can't be buying a couple of £50m players each season, we'll have to produce these from within for now.

Just how that works if we qualify for Europe (with more prize money but perhaps not significant unless it's Champions League) where squad costs needs to be under 70% of revenue...

The budget must assume growing revenues outpace squad costs (also factoring the EPL's safety of allowing 30% above 85% = 115% where we can safely negotiate with Masters without receiving points deductions immediately.

I'm happy we seem to be much better organised, even if the rules have effectively installed the glass ceiling unless we're very lucky.

[Bluedylan1]

What if it rains quid coins?

HE offered nothing to no-one.

I agree, he’s a profile I really like in a prem wide player to be honest but please do not kid yourself - we are taking the risk. for a player to be one of your top earners for the next 3-4 years they should be better than just decent tbh. Who on earth do you think wants a busted flush on £100k+ a week if we - a shite side - deem him not good enough? There’s only so many Evertons unfortunately.

I hope he will be successful but this isn’t evidence of good strategy it’s…a gamble on a player surely nobody wanted because he was available with no outlay. For whatever reason we are still behaving like weird dodgy duck and dive market traders. Give you one of these if you’ve any old shite to throw in?

I don't think there is much of a risk. We've swapped a player who is clearly lower in value (McNeil probably £15-20m) for a player who is higher in value (Johnson probably £25-30m).

So immediately you've offset the increase in wages we'll be paying by increasing the squad value.

Also we've signed a comfortably better player than the one we've let go, so there should be additional value on the pitch which may contribute to higher league position and more prize money.

If in a worst case scenario, it goes badly for Johnson and doesn't work out, which is absolutely a possibility, we still have a better player and a more likely contributor than Dwight McNeil.

If we wanted to offload Johnson in a season or two for £10-15m, we could absolutely still sell him. There's absolutely teams who would buy him at age 26/27. We may have to pay some of the wages to get rid, but again we're not talking a big amount of money. Very little risk. If he's on 100k a week, and we had to pay half of that even to move him on, we're not talking vast amounts of money or big financial risk in the current financial climate in the Prem.

You're wildly overstating the financial risk.

More generally, I don't understand what you don't understand about our financial situation. We can only spend upto 85% of our footballing revenues. Our footballing revenues aren't very big. They're growing and they will continue to grow, but we have strict limitations. If you were expecting us to be lashing £40-50m bids on multiple players this summer, you were wildly mistaken.

[Cods]

What if it rains quid coins?

HE offered nothing to no-one.

I agree, he’s a profile I really like in a prem wide player to be honest but please do not kid yourself - we are taking the risk. for a player to be one of your top earners for the next 3-4 years they should be better than just decent tbh. Who on earth do you think wants a busted flush on £100k+ a week if we - a shite side - deem him not good enough? There’s only so many Evertons unfortunately.

I hope he will be successful but this isn’t evidence of good strategy it’s…a gamble on a player surely nobody wanted because he was available with no outlay. For whatever reason we are still behaving like weird dodgy duck and dive market traders. Give you one of these if you’ve any old shite to throw in?

If we've seen him be quite brilliant at Forest and Spurs, and only not during 12 months of disruption at both Spurs at Palace why assume he's a 'busted flush'? This analogy really gets too much credence.

Palace deem he wasn't good enough(?), or perhaps too expensive given they've been selling like crazy the last few seasons - and overspent on strikers given they bought in Strand Larsen and their Mateta sale fell through. I'd say its more likely they're struggling to afford their top earners given all thats been going on there the last few years and McNeil's considerably smaller wage fit their structure given the loss in quality (if not recent output) the move resulted in.

Johnson's suffered no recent injury, still has excellent pace and finishing, makes good decisions and has good timing, and is a profile we don't have, as you say. He was only used as a sub in his last 6 months at Spurs, and was started in at least 4 different positions in his 14 starts at Palace in a formation he maybe wasnt suited to. Hardly the consistency that most players need.

I'd say on balance it's far more likely to have upside. All players have blips in form, I'd put more money on his 16G+A average over the prior 4 seasons continuing than his most recent 12 months. The only thing stopping it is a bad injury or bit part roles. He's still only 25 so losing pace isn't a concern yet. He could actually be transformative for us with anything close to those numbers. Not bad for an average of 70min/match over that time.

Whilst it's also not the perfect analogy, I'd put more trust in the adage 'Class ain't temporary'.

Picking up good quality in underperforming and unsettled players at other clubs is as good a tactic as picking up undiscovered gems from afar, which also carry significant risk and outlay when we've not had the back office to do it. I'm confident this side of our transfer strategy will come in time.

[Paddockoldie]

What if it rains quid coins?

HE offered nothing to no-one.

I agree, he’s a profile I really like in a prem wide player to be honest but please do not kid yourself - we are taking the risk. for a player to be one of your top earners for the next 3-4 years they should be better than just decent tbh. Who on earth do you think wants a busted flush on £100k+ a week if we - a shite side - deem him not good enough? There’s only so many Evertons unfortunately.

I hope he will be successful but this isn’t evidence of good strategy it’s…a gamble on a player surely nobody wanted because he was available with no outlay. For whatever reason we are still behaving like weird dodgy duck and dive market traders. Give you one of these if you’ve any old shite to throw in?

If there ever came such a day, when quid coins fell like rain, I'd grab a hard hat and a large bucket. Then, I'd jump on my unicorn and ride back to my castle on the hill

[AjaxAndy]

No one knows what wages he's on, might only by £75k as he would have been desperate to get out of Place.

Not sure why everyone just assumes he's on what he was at Palace or even higher wages. I get that normally that's the case, but it's not always what happens.

Some transfers players take a cut in wages to get out of a bad situation where they aren't wanted and don't play.

[Gash]

Also, sites than publish players salaries etc are just speculating but the average PL wage is apparently £60-70k a week so I don't believe for a minute that McNeil who joined for a decent fee at the time was 'only' on £25k a week, Tony Hibbert was on that 15 years ago so the difference in wages to Johnson isn't going to be that big.

[74Blue]

Also, sites than publish players salaries etc are just speculating but the average PL wage is apparently £60-70k a week so I don't believe for a minute that McNeil who joined for a decent fee at the time was 'only' on £25k a week, Tony Hibbert was on that 15 years ago so the difference in wages to Johnson isn't going to be that big.

£25k a week is hardly going to cover the cost of fuel in that G-Wagen of his.

[Escalator]

When you go from a world class Spurs stadium to a dump of a run down championship standard stadium like Selhurst Park it’s bound to take its toll, he looked genuinely exited in the vid of him looking around Hill Dickinson, had that sort of “I’m back” look on his face.

[Escalator]

It's a lot isn't it, there's a few in the squad who will want to be near that figure now. Risky business.

Gana was on £120k a week, Norgard will be on half of that,

[Raptor]

I mean, im not sure either points are wrong?

Former Tottenham midfielder O'Hara is known as a pundit who often likes to talk big.

And he could not help getting a few digs in about the deal involving Johnson and McNeil when discussing it with ex-Aston Villa forward Agbonlahor live on talkSPORT.

Among the jabs was the rather cruel comment "we'll give you cr*p, we'll give you cr*p back" when discussing the merits of the deal between the two sides.

In fairness to Johnson, he refused to take the barb lying down and hit back in the comments on talkSPORT's Instagram page.

Johnson wrote: "Won more than both of these put together" with a crying with laughter face emoji.