Johnson continues to answer his critics

Brennan Johnson has impressively answered his critics after a period of receiving abuse on his social media accounts.

The 23-year-old forward deactivated his Instagram account early this season after going 12 goals without a game, including his eight final matches towards the end of 2023-24.

The nature of the abuse clearly affected the Wales international given some of the comments made by manager Ange Postecoglou in his defence, and his reaction to scoring at Coventry - his first in a run of three goals in three matches away.

Now, after scoring at home to Brentford and again in a key moment when Tottenham had just gone down to 10 men in the Europa League against Qarabag, Johnson is looking important, effective and confident again.

That was the 50th club goal of his career, spread across his time at Lincoln City, Nottingham Forest and Spurs, and now only Son Heung-min has scored more for the north Londoners since the start of last season.

Johnson is still a young player who just three years ago was playing for the Imps in League One, but his £50m price tag when joining Spurs has raised expectations to a perhaps unreasonable level in some quarters.

There were other positives for boss Postecoglou as his team dealt with their man disadvantage following Radu Dragusin's seventh-minute red card and dominated.

Pape Matar Sarr added a second goal just after half-time through a mistake by goalkeeper Mateusz Kochalski and Dominic Solanke doubled his tally for the club.

Afterwards, Postecoglou praised the burgeoning partnership building between Johnson and Solanke, who linked well for the opener.

He said: "Brennan's been good at taking up those positions and him and Dom have a good little sort of relationship there in terms of working off each other."

New signing Archie Gray was brought in to play at right-back and did well. Lucas Bergvall looked heartbroken to be taken off in the 12th minute after the red card but Mikey Moore, 17, got another late cameo.

Qarabag missed chances of their own as Spurs remained a little open. Yves Bissouma gave away a penalty, but Toral Bayramov crashed his effort off the crossbar.

But a potential late injury to Son may thrust Johnson further into the spotlight when Spurs face Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, although those concerns were played down by Postecoglou in his post-match comments.