The England international made his Premier League debut for Palace in the recent win over Leeds United and has since started Palace’s subsequent two games, keeping the club’s first back-to-back clean sheets this season.
With Vicente Guaita returning from injury to be named among the substitutes in Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Everton, and Joe Whitworth having made his Premier League debut earlier this season, Johnstone praised the collective achievement and unity among Palace’s goalkeepers.
He said afterwards: “Obviously I’m happy with a clean sheet – but it’s a team effort.
“I had to wait my turn. It was frustrating, but as a goalkeeper we work hard every day with each other. We’re a group that train – just the goalies – together, and we’re supportive of the other players.
“I’ve supported Vicente and Joe all season, and now they’ve supported me, so I’m happy to now be in the team playing – and thankfully getting clean sheets.
“Of course, everyone wants to play, but I have to make sure that when I’m on the pitch, I do well. That keeps you in the team, so that’s all I can do.”
Johnstone feels that, while a draw against Everton – in which he made five saves – brought an end to Palace’s recent winning run, it was still a positive result in the context of the Eagles’ bid to finish as high up the table as possible.
He noted: “It was a tough game. We knew it was going to be tough. We wanted the points, but they [Everton] are fighting for points and they’re never going to make it easy – they have good players and they’re physical.
“We knew it was always going to be difficult and we weren’t quite on it, but we came away with a point, so although we’re unhappy that we didn’t get to take three points, we should be happy that we at least took one.
“We all believe that [we will stay up] and we have to. We have good players and a good team, a good manager, but it’s still tight at the bottom, so we have to keep going and picking up points. That’s why the point today was very important.
“We go again Tuesday [at Wolverhampton Wanderers] and we [still have to] play a lot of teams around us, so it’s very important that we keep going and hopefully keep getting three points.”