Nottingham Forest have been warned about the threat posed by the man who did so much to keep them in the Premier League last season.
Tottenham attacker Brennan Johnson was a £47.5m summer recruit from Forest as the London club came to terms with losing England captain Harry Kane to Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich.
And as the Reds prepare for Sunday’s 6pm kick-off in north London - and a reunion with Johnson - the 22-year-old Nigel Doughty Academy graduate has been told he still has plenty more to offer by his new manager.
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Ange Postecoglou said: “We had a minimum of 30 goals walk out the building. People are going to be looking at how we’re going to replace that and it can weigh heavily on a young guy’s shoulders.
“Not that we can expect Brennan to replace Harry, but we needed goals and assists and I like the way he’s handled it.”
The Wales international scored in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at West Ham to make it five goal involvements in his last five Premier League matches, and after a slow start to life at Spurs is now beginning to hit top form.
Postecoglou added: “We’ve tried to tread carefully with him because I can see the potential in him. I can see how much he can improve and the attributes he has.
“I’ve got no doubt that he will fit really well with this team, but I’m not going to put a ceiling on it because that would be unfair on him. We like the way he’s progressing but we certainly believe there is more to come, for sure.
“I think now he’s found a bit of confidence, consistency and understanding of how we play, he’s getting the rewards, which is great. But he’s still a young guy and we bought him with very much an eye that whatever he does this year, there’s definitely a lot more in him.
“And when you see improvement that encourages us even more because it makes you think that if we invest the time in him even more, he’s going to be a super player for us.”
While Johnson could be ready to do plenty of damage to Forest’s survival hopes this term, one Spurs weakness for Nuno Espirito Santo to exploit could be his former club’s apparent susceptibility to set piece goals.
They have already conceded 10 goals from set-pieces in the Premier League this season - including West Ham’s equaliser in midweek by Kurt Zouma - but Postecoglou rejects claims it is an Achilles’ heel.
He added: “I think we’ve been pretty good at set-pieces. Every goal you concede is down to something. It was a decent delivery the other night, they’ve got some big guys, but the rest of their set-pieces I thought we handled quite well.
“We gave away too many corners. That was an issue for us. I thought that was part of the game we could have handled a bit better, not to give away so many, but I think those kind of things people just kind of look at in snapshots.”
