So with it being the international break, I figure that it’s time we spoke about one of the players that has been making an impact with their country this past weekend. Specifically 18-year-old Brennan Johnson and his impact for Wales.
Having made a bit of an impression on the first team already this season by making a few appearances, as well as hinting at the possibility of a few more to come in the future, he added to his credentials on Friday night by scoring against Belgium as Wales U21 emerged with a 1-0 victory.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago asking fans what they thought of the young man and whether or not his short-term future lay at the City Ground or elsewhere, and the responses to the piece were very much mixed. However, his goal on the weekend was just one more incident that convinced me that his future, for the short-term at the very least, lies at Forest.
The fact that he is able to play against players much older than him in the international setup and score against them shows both a level of maturity and ability to play above his age. Plus when you consider Belgium’s recent knack of producing a good number of talented players, to score against them is certainly no mean feat.
Kenny Burns wrote on the weekend about how Forest made a mistake last week in the dying moments of the transfer window in letting go of Daryl Murphy:
“I would have kept Murphy around though. Forest have just two strikers in the first team – Lewis Grabban and Rafa Mir. For me, Mir is not good enough based on the evidence of his performances so far this season. Murphy is no spring chicken, but he could do different things to Grabban and Mir well.”
However, I think that Burns has missed a trick here in leaving Johnson’s name out of the picture. If he thinks that Mir isn’t up to the task, then I think he’s foolish to just dismiss Johnson, who has already managed to score for the Forest U23s this season, surely it’s time for him to get some significant minutes in the first team to see if he’s up to the challenge. If he can’t, then no big deal he can carry on his development in the U23s, but we won’t know until we’ve tried.
Do you think that Johnson should be getting more minutes in the first team? Or do you think that calling him up so soon would be a bit detrimental to his development?
