Brennan Johnson and Dwight McNeil Swap: A Premier League Reset
Brennan Johnson has barely had time to unpack his bags in south London and he’s on the move again. Eight months after Crystal Palace paid a reported club-record £35 million to prise him from Tottenham, the Wales international has signed a four-year deal with Everton.
In a throwback of a deal, it’s a straight Premier League swap. Dwight McNeil heads the other way to Selhurst Park, Johnson to the Hill Dickinson Stadium. Two wingers, two stalled seasons, two clubs gambling on a reset.
Two careers stuck in neutral
Johnson’s short spell at Palace never caught fire. Across 26 appearances in all competitions, he failed to score once. For a player signed to be a cutting edge in the final third, the numbers told a brutal story.
McNeil’s campaign at Everton was no better. Once talked up as a future star at Burnley, the 26-year-old also finished the season without a goal, drawing a blank in 25 outings. For both, the promise was still there on paper. The output simply wasn’t.
That made the swap feel less like a blockbuster and more like a reboot. Two clubs, each saying: let’s see if a change of scenery fixes this.
O’Hara and Agbonlahor let rip
The move lit up the airwaves. Live on talkSPORT, former Tottenham midfielder Jamie O’Hara and ex-Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor tore into the deal and the players’ recent form.
"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 drilled down on the numbers, pointing to the lack of goals and assists from both last season. "You look at their output last season," he said, before summing up the swap with a shrug: "It’s a bit like ‘you give us him and we’ll give you him!'"
The punchline came from O’Hara, as the pair laughed at their own brutality: "We’ll give you crap, we’ll give you crap back!"
Johnson bites back
The clip hit Instagram and spread quickly. Johnson saw it. He didn’t let it slide.
His response in the comments was short, sharp and aimed straight at the pundits’ medals drawer: "Won more than both of these put together."
Eight words. No emojis. No softening. A reminder that, whatever his form, his honours list already stacks up well against two loud critics.
The backlash to the broadcast put O’Hara on the defensive the following morning. Posting on X, he argued the viral clip stripped away the context of a longer discussion.
"This [is] the [problem] when you only listen to a clip and not full story," he wrote. He stressed they were hammering last season’s numbers, not writing off the players themselves. "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 stats were the target, O’Hara insisted. Not the careers.
Fresh starts, instant reunion
Now the noise fades and the reality kicks in. Johnson walks into an Everton side under David Moyes that badly needs goals from wide areas. At 25, he still carries pace, direct running and the sense there’s a top-level attacker waiting to be unlocked. The mission is simple: turn potential into product and quieten the talk-show jabs.
McNeil gets his own reset. Palace will ask him to rediscover the sharp, inventive winger who once lit up Turf Moor, not the player who laboured through last season on Merseyside. A new city, a new dressing room, and probably a shorter leash.
They won’t have long to prove anyone wrong. The fixture list has already circled the date: Everton vs Crystal Palace on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season.
Two wingers, two fresh shirts, and a reunion with their old clubs before the ink on the contracts has even dried.
