Andrew Johnson (English footballer)

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Andy Johnson
Personal information
Full name	Andrew Johnson
Date of birth	February 10, 1981 (age 26)
Place of birth	Bedford, England
Height	5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Nickname	AJ
Playing position	Striker
Club information
Current club	Everton
Number	8
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1997–2002 2002–2006 2006–	Birmingham City Crystal Palace Everton	083 0(8) 140 (74) 027 (11)
National team2
2005-	England	007 0(0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 16:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC). 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 23:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC). * Appearances (Goals)

Andrew Johnson (born 10 February 1981 in Bedford) is a professional English footballer who plays for Everton in the Premiership as a striker. His previous clubs are Birmingham City and Crystal Palace.

Contents 1 Club career 1.1 Birmingham City 1.2 Crystal Palace 1.3 Everton 2 International Career 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Club career

[edit] Birmingham City

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 a set-back, missing a deciding penalty, in the 2001 Worthington Cup Final shootout defeat, to Liverpool.

After only a few noteworthy appearances, he was sold to Crystal Palace in 2002, following the Blues' promotion to the Premier League. Johnson was used as the makeweight in a transfer deal for Clinton Morrison, taking the value of £750,000 for the purposes of the transaction.

[edit] Crystal Palace

Whilst his arrival was not greeted with any real excitement at Palace, the transfer turned out to be an excellent move for both Johnson and Palace. He soon made himself very popular with Palace fans with a hat-trick in the 5-0 drubbing of the Eagles' arch-rivals, Brighton & Hove Albion, on 26 October 2002, and then another, in the very next game, at Walsall.

However, manager Trevor Francis continued to play his preferred main strike partnership of Ade Akinbiyi and Dele Adebola, keeping both Johnson and Palace legend Dougie Freedman on the left-wing and bench, respectively. When Francis was dismissed, and with the Eagles mid-table, he was replaced by Steve Kember, who decided to partner Freedman with Neil Shipperley, while Johnson was left to play the role of support striker. The new strike partnership initially worked well, with Palace winning their first three games and topping the table. However, the good start to the season did not continue and, with Palace languishing in 20th place in November, Kember was dropped.

Under the aegis of new manager and coach Iain Dowie, Johnson's all-round game improved. Now partnering Shipperley, Johnson ended the season as top scorer in the 2003-04 Football League First Division season with 32 goals. Palace reached the playoffs and were promoted to the Premier League for 2004-05.

Despite Palace's relegation back to the Championship the following season, Johnson was the highest scoring English player with 21 goals. Although Johnson's detractors noted that eight of these came from penalties rather than open play (a record for the Premier League), he himself won seven of the penalties. Regardless of the proportion of goals that were penalties, Johnson's tally was seen as an impressive achievement for a player in their first season of Premier League football.

In the summer of 2005, with Palace having been relegated, Johnson requested a transfer prompting much speculation as to which club he might move to. However, on 2 August 2005, Johnson signed a five year contract with Palace for an improved wage (believed to be around £24,000 a week) and pledged to help them regain their place in the top flight. Palace chairman Simon Jordan blamed Johnson's agent Leon Angel for pressurising Johnson into handing in the transfer request.

Johnson was soon playing alongside Clinton Morrison, who had rejoined Palace from Birmingham for a fee of £2m (three years after Birmingham had bought him in a deal for £4.25m plus Johnson). Morrison was reported as saying that he had returned to Palace specifically to play alongside Johnson, much to the amusement of many Eagles fans, who saw the irony of the deal, Birmingham having effectively paid Crystal Palace £2.25m to take Andy Johnson. The two transfers took place between the Eagles and the former Palace manager Steve Bruce, who had been seen by fans as having betrayed the club by defecting to the Midlands side.

However, due to injury to Johnson, and Morrison's lack of form, the pairing was limited in the early part of the season. With a return to fitness and form, the two soon became Dowie's first choice pairing as the season progressed, with Dougie Freedman adding experience to the strike force.

Palace comfortably made it into a top-six position but in the playoffs failed to recover from a first leg defeat at the hands of Watford, being beaten on aggregate in the semi-finals. Johnson scored 15 goals in the Championship that season.

In 2005, Johnson was voted into Palace's Centenary XI, the only player at the club at the time to be selected, and, following the retirement of Nigel Martyn, he is now the only member of the team still actively playing on a professional basis.

[edit] Everton

After Crystal Palace's failure to return to top-flight football, speculation about Johnson's future at the club began with a transfer to a Premier League club seeming highly likely. However, when an initial bid from Everton of £7.25 million was rejected, it looked more likely that the club would be able to keep Johnson for a further year after all. Nevertheless, the controversial departure of manager Iain Dowie only increased the likelihood of Johnson's departure, and on 24 May 2006 Palace accepted an £8.5million bid from Wigan Athletic for Johnson. This bid was matched by fellow Lancashire club Bolton Wanderers a day later, which was also accepted.

With Johnson having indicated a preference for a move to Merseyside, Everton, prompted by the two other bids, improved their offer to £8.6 million the following day. On 30 May, he passed his medical and completed the move to Goodison Park, signing a five-year contract. He is believed to be Everton's highest paid player on £40,000 per week, although some reports suggest he is in fact on equal pay with fellow striker James Beattie at around £30,000 a week. Johnson's move set new club transfer records, both as Everton's most expensive purchase and Palace's most expensive sale. He stated that his reason for moving to Everton was the size and stature of the club and the size of the club's fanbase.

Johnson netted his first goal for Everton in his debut on 19 August 2006, in a 2-1 win over Watford, a goal which he celebrated in front of the Hornets fans. In his programme notes, he stated he had "unfinished business" with Watford, following their playoff defeat of Palace. He has continued a good start to his Everton career by scoring against Tottenham Hotspur away to end a 21-year victory drought there and then scoring twice in the 3-0 derby victory against Liverpool. Johnson is currently Everton's top scorer in the 2006-07 Premier League campaign with 11 goals to his name (and one in the FA Cup). However, Johnson was allegedly affected by allegations of simulation,^{[citation needed]} going 13 games without scoring a goal at one stage.

After a league match with Chelsea on 17 December 2006, Chelsea boss José Mourinho branded Johnson "untrustworthy" following a challenge with Chelsea goalkeeper Hilário. Everton issued a statement threatening legal action and calling on Mourinho to apologise,^[1] which he has since done.^[2] Mourinho is not the first to air such sentiments about Johnson; Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock also having accused Johnson of resorting to "gamesmanship" to win a penalty in a Premier League match between the two clubs. However, Mourinho has since apologised for his comments.^[3]

Everton manager David Moyes took the unusual step of contacting the Professional Game Match Officials Board in order to counter these accusations. The board's general manager Keith Hackett agreed that Johnson was being treated harshly and had been denied several clear penalties.

[edit] International Career

Johnson was first capped for England at U20 level, being selected in the team for the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship alongside Stuart Taylor, Ashley Cole, Peter Crouch and Matthew Etherington. The team finished bottom of their group, losing all three games without scoring.

In the 2004-05 season, as the top English goalscorer in the Premier League, there were many calling for him to be selected for the full England squad. Midway through the season, Johnson revealed that he would accept a call-up to the Poland squad, which hurried England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson into giving Johnson his first call-up, to face the Netherlands on 9 February 2005, and he made his first appearance in that game, replacing Wayne Rooney in the 61st minute. Bizarrely, however, Eriksson elected to play Palace's lone striker out of position on the right wing (similar to Trevor Francis playing him on the left wing), where he gamely fought to impress, but was clearly out of position.

A second cap came when Johnson made his full debut for England, in a 2-1 friendly win over the United States, during England's tour of America in the summer of 2005.

On 9 May 2006, Johnson was put on stand-by by Eriksson in his squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. He was also an unused substitute in the England B game against Belarus and the first team's wins over Hungary (who included former Palace team-mates Gábor Király and Sándor Torghelle in their side) and Jamaica.

With Steve McClaren now installed as the new England coach, it is thought that Johnson may get more of a chance to play for his country. When McClaren named his squad for the Euro 2008 qualifiers against Andorra (at Old Trafford on 2 September 2006) and away to Macedonia (on 6 September 2006), Johnson received another call-up. However, it should be noted that his selection was made after injuries to Michael Owen and Dean Ashton, plus the suspension of Wayne Rooney after his red card in the 2006 FIFA World Cup defeat to Portugal. Johnson made two more substitute appearances in those games, but missed the return game against Macedonia and the game in Zagreb against Croatia through injury. He did, however, return for another friendly against the Netherlands, the team against which he made his debut.

Johnson made his first competitive start for England in the Euro 2008 qualifier with Israel.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Andrew Johnson career stats at Soccerbase
• Andrew Johnson's offical web site at icons.com
• Andrew Johnson profile at Everton F.C.'s web site
• Andrew Johnson statistics, honours, timeline at footballdatabase.com

Preceded by Hayden Mullins	Crystal Palace Player of the Year 2004	Succeeded by Andy Johnson
Preceded by Andy Johnson	Crystal Palace Player of the Year 2005	Succeeded by Emmerson Boyce

Everton F.C. - Current Squad
1 Wright | 2 Hibbert | 3 Naysmith | 4 Yobo | 6 Arteta | 7 Van der Meyde | 8 Johnson | 9 Beattie | 11 McFadden | 15 Stubbs | 16 Lescott | 17 Cahill | 18 Neville | 19 Valente | 21 Osman | 22 Vaughan | 23 Pistone | 24 Howard | 26 Carsley | 28 Anichebe | 30 Ruddy | 36 Boyle | 37 Fernandes | 38 Anderson | 41 Viðarsson | Manager: Moyes