Brennan: “I love playing for this team, it feels like a family”

Brennan Johnson feels the togetherness of the squad drove our fantastic response as we came from trailing 1-0 at half-time to beat Aston Villa 4-1 in the Premier League at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.

Brennan sparked the revival four minutes into the second half when he turned home Heung-Min Son’s cross. Dominic Solanke then put us in the driving seat with two goals in five minutes, clipping home one-on-one from Dejan Kulusevski’s pass before converting Richarlison’s cross. James Maddison completed the turn around with a textbook free-kick in added time.

That was Brennan’s seventh goal as we made it nine wins in 11 in all competitions and it was put to the Wales international on our Review Show that it looks like he’s loving every minute.

“I love playing for this team, playing under the staff and the manager,” he said. “As a team, we're at a good point at the minute, everyone's really working hard for each other, and it feels like more and more of a family to be honest.

“We’re all a year stronger into this experience with the manager, and I feel games like today are where it shows, because it was a similar game to last season when we played Villa, although we scored early, so that’s different to today, but I think today just showed how far we’ve come.”

The nature of the test provided by Villa and a somewhat stop-start nature particularly of the first half wasn’t lost on Brennan. “That’s what they do so well,” he said. “Obviously, they're a quality side and that shows with how they’ve been getting on this season, last season as well, so we knew we were up against it.

“We weren’t up against any old team, they’re a proper team and naturally, they're going to have moments where they frustrate us and work their game plan better than we do ours, but the second half was just about kicking on, staying positive, staying clear headed, and showing our quality.”