Nottingham Forest (England), Norwich City (England), West Brom (England)
Honours
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Biography
Andrew Johnson (born February 10, 1981 in Bedford), more
commonly known as Andy Johnson or AJ, is an English footballer
who plays for Crystal Palace in The Championship. He wears the
number 8 shirt and is a right-footed striker. Johnson's main
attribute is his tremendous turn of pace and, given his small
stature, his impressive body strength. He is also referred to by
Crystal Palace supporters as AJ, who regularly sing his name to
the tune of 'Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag', by Pigbag and 'Reach
Up' by Perfecto Allstarz.
Initially, Johnson's career was held back by the perception that
he was too small to prosper as a top level striker. He began his
footballing career at Birmingham City, where he suffered
heartbreak, missing a deciding penalty, in the 2001 Worthington
Cup Final shootout defeat, to Liverpool.
After only a few noteworthy appearances, he was sold to Palace
in 2002 as the makeweight in a transfer deal for Clinton
Morrison, taking the value of £750,000 for the purposes of the
transaction. Whilst his arrival was not greeted with any real
excitement at Palace, the transfer turned out to be a very good
move for both Johnson and Palace.
He made himself very popular with Palace fans, with his hattrick
in the 5-0 drubbing of the Eagles' arch-rivals, Brighton & Hove
Albion, on 26 October 2002, but still was accused of missing
chances constantly.
Under the aegis of manager and coach Iain Dowie, Johnson's all-round
game improved. Johnson was the top scorer in the English First
Division (now the Football League Championship) in the 2003/2004
season, scoring 32 goals, helping Palace to reach the Playoffs
from where they were promoted to the Premiership in 2004/2005.
In the 2004/2005 season, he was the top English goalscorer in
the Premiership, prompting calls for him to be selected for his
nation. He got his first call-up against the Netherlands on
February 9, 2005, replacing Wayne Rooney in the 61st minute.
Bizarrely, however, England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson elected
to play Palace's lone striker out of position on the right wing,
where he gamely fought to impress, but was clearly out of
position. Theories accounting for this obvious tactical blunder
range from simple managerial inadequacy, to the rather
Macchiavellian idea that in playing Johnson on the wing Eriksson
was bowing to widespread pressure to see him play for England,
without actually wanting to give him a chance to excel, himself
favouring better established names like Newcastle United striker
Michael Owen. A more benign, although logically weaker
explanation sees Eriksson value overall participation in
international friendlies over specific performance.
Johnson also helped Palace pull off a shock result, in April
2005, by scoring the only goal in the home league fixture,
against future European Champions Liverpool.
However, this did not help Palace survive, and they were
relegated on the last day of the season.
Despite Palace's relegation to the Championship, Johnson was the
highest scoring English player with 21 goals in the season.
Although Johnson's detractors note that 11 of these came from
penalty kicks rather than open play (a record for the
Premiership), he himself won 7 of the penalties. Nevertheless,
this is still an impressive tally for a player, in their first
season of Premiership football.
Johnson's fans hope to see him represent his country in more
propitious circumstances in the future.
In the summer of 2005 after Palace had been relegated Andy
Johnson requested a transfer and there was much speculation as
to his possible move from the club. On August 2, 2005 Andy
signed a five year contract with Palace for an improved wage (believed
to be around £20 000 a week) and pledged to help them regain
their place in the top flight.
He was able to play alongside Clinton Morrison, shortly after,
as Morrison joined Palace from Birmingham for a fee of
£2,000,000, just a few years after Birmingham had bought him in
a swap deal for £3,750,000 plus Andy Johnson. Morrison said that
he came back to Palace specifically so that he could play
alongside Johnson. This deal caused widespread amusement among
many Eagles fans who enjoyed ridiculing 'traitor' Steve Bruce
for paying them money to take Andy Johnson.
Due to injuries (to Johnson), and lack of form (of Morrison),
the chances of the pairing playing alongside each other had been
limited in the early part of the season. However, Dowie's first
choice pairing as the season moved into its second half was
Johnson and the newly signed Jon Macken, who offers more in the
way of holding up the ball and more of an aerial threat than the
diminuitive pair of Johnson and Morrison.
Palace comfortably got to the Play-offs, and are on the brink of
the Premiership once again, but were unfortunately beaten on
aggregate by Watford. It remains to be seen whether Johnson will
still be at Selhurst Park in August.
On 9 May 2006, Johnson was put on stand-by by Sven-Göran
Eriksson in his provisional squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup,
in Germany.
In 2005, Andy was voted into Palace's Centenary XI, the only
player at the club at the time to be selected.
