Brennan Johnson says the upheaval at Crystal Palace during the 2025/26 season now feels like a distant memory as the club prepares for the UEFA Conference League final. The 25-year-old forward said the side have grown stronger through the campaign and are now focused on beating Spanish club Rayo Vallecano for a first ever European trophy.
Johnson has had a direct view of how fast Palace’s season has moved. The club lost Eberechi Eze and captain Marc Guehi during the campaign, yet stayed comfortably in the Premier League and reached the final, while Oliver Glasner has already announced he will step down as manager at the end of the season. For Johnson, that momentum has changed the mood entirely.
“Probably, looking back the change affected us a little bit,” he said of the changes around the squad. “The longer it went on, the more games we played, especially in the Conference League, the buzz comes back and then it feels like that was a distant memory because now we’re a team that’s feeling as good as we ever have.”
Johnson knows what it takes to win at this level. Last season, he was part of the Tottenham side that lifted the Europa League, and he scored the winning goal in the final. He also finished as Tottenham’s top scorer, a run that underlined his value before a mixed start to this season under Thomas Frank led to a January move away from north London.
The switch to Palace came quickly. Johnson said he had barely had time to settle when he left Tottenham in January and was thrown back into action two days later in Newcastle. “If I’m honest, it probably wasn’t something that I expected to happen within the first couple of weeks of being at the club,” he said. “I literally signed and two days later, I was up in Newcastle playing. It happened so fast.”
He described the move as difficult at first because it was a mid-season change to a new club, new team and new dressing room, even if the move was only across London. “I’ll be honest, it was one that I probably struggled with a little bit at the time,” Johnson said. “It was all new, even though it was only in London.”
That adjustment, though, has since given way to belief. Johnson said the squad, staff and supporters helped him settle quickly, and that the atmosphere around the club has fed the push toward the final. “But what I can say is the boys and the staff and the fans here have made me feel welcome,” he said. “I owe a lot of thanks to them for making me feel at home here.”
Palace now stand one game from a landmark that would sit apart from everything else in the club’s modern history. Johnson said the thought of repeating last season’s European success does surface, but only briefly, before the scale of the task takes over. “We want to do everything we can to bring success,” he said. “It’s something that definitely I want to replicate.”
For Palace, the final is more than a chance at silverware. It is the end point of a season that has already absorbed major departures, a managerial exit and a steady run through Europe. For Johnson, it is another shot at the kind of night that can define a career — and another chance to make sure this season is remembered for the trophy, not the changes that once threatened to shape it.
