Crystal Palace reach agreement to sign Tottenham forward for £35m ahead of January transfer window

Per The Athletic, Palace have reached an agreement with Spurs to sign Johnson ahead of the January transfer window, but have yet to strike an agreement with the player himself. Johnson is said to be considering his options and there is also reportedly interest from fellow Premier League clubs; Aston Villa and Bournemouth have both been linked, with the winger struggling for minutes under manager Thomas Frank. This season, the Wales international has made just six Premier League starts, despite ending last season as the club's top scorer with 18 goals in all competitions, 11 of which came in the league.

Johnson must make a decision over his future, as he has been pushed down the pecking order at Spurs by the summer signing of Mohammed Kudus from West Ham. Were Johnson to leave Spurs for £35m, he would become the club's fourth-highest sale in their history, after Harry Kane, Gareth Bale, and Kyle Walker. Nevertheless, Spurs are set to make a significant loss on the 24-year-old, having paid £47.5m ($64m) to sign him from Nottingham Forest in 2023. Palace are aiming to strengthen their squad as they bid to compete both domestically and in Europe under Oliver Glasner.

Spurs are interested in signing RB Leipzig winger Yan DIomande as a potential replacement for Johnson, per BBC Sport, while there is also interest in Savinho, at Manchester City, after Tottenham attempted to buy the Brazilian in the summer.

Spurs have endured another terrible domestic season thus far and sit 11th in the Premier League table, having taken 25 points from 18 games. They have won seven and lost seven of their league games, and yet they remain just seven points behind the top four, so an uptick in form could well see them in contention for European qualification. 

Frank has claimed that he and Spurs are moving in the "right direction". He told Sky Sports: "Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it doesn't work if you say, 'Ah, the pros are, by the way, are so good. We have so many nice underlying performance indicators, but by the way, we lost 15 games in a row'. It doesn't work like that, so we need to win, and we need to win, hopefully, a lot of football matches. But what I like is that we haven't had two bad performances in a row. 

"Maybe we lost two games in a row, but not two bad performances. I think it's a big difference. We performed terribly against Arsenal, which is very bad. But we put in a very good performance against PSG, for example. As an example, bad performance against Nottingham Forest, but a good performance against Liverpool. I know we lost it, but that's what you need to look at. And that's a good indicator of how we bounce back, how we work with the players and the team. And I think that's signs of something going in the right direction."

He added: "Honestly, I think we are in a transition phase, because yes, we are a Champions League club, but are we a Champions League club? We only qualified because we won the Europa League. We didn't qualify because we were one of the four or five best clubs in the Premier League last season. We finished 17th. And now we need to compete in the Champions League while we're competing in the Premier League, which is the most difficult thing."

Tottenham face Brentford on New Year's Day in their next Premier League fixture. Ironically enough, they faced Palace last time out, winning 1-0 thanks to an Archie Gray header. Johnson came on as second-half substitute.