Freedman defends Palace penalty king Johnson

Dougie Freedman believes Crystal Palace strike partner Andrew Johnson deserves every one of his 18 Premiership goals this season.

The recent England cap is only one behind Arsenal's Thierry Henry in the top flight scoring charts but detractors claim the fact that half of them are penalties means his talent has been over-stated.

Birmingham manager Steve Bruce also hinted that Johnson was a diver after his former player won one spot-kick and converted two in Saturday's 2-0 win.

But the claim that "he is remarkably good at falling over" was dismissed by Freedman, who said: "A lot of AJ's goal have come from penalties but he has been in situations where if he wasn't brought down he would have had a scoring opportunity.

"It is rubbish for anyone to say that because they are penalties they don't really count. They are all goals which have got us a lot of points.

"Getting penalties is one thing, scoring them is another. I think the reason for the number of penalties we have got this season is the way we attack. We go forward with a lot of energy and there is a little bit of pace there when we counter-attack. We get into the box early and make defenders tackle."