Not that the England shot-stopper lost any focus as his team saw out the first-half lead provided by Joachim Andersen’s thunderbolt, securing a famous win for Crystal Palace away at Manchester United.
But for Johnstone, a return to Old Trafford – the place where he started his career at Academy level – was made all the sweeter by the brilliant backing provided by an away end not only making their second trip to Manchester in the space of five days, but overcoming train strikes and high volumes of traffic to do so.
“They’re brilliant,” Johnstone told Palace TV. “They’re the best fans that I’ve played in front of. Their support on Tuesday, and then again today, with the train strikes, was unbelievable.
“It does go a long way. For the lads to hear them over 70,000 United fans… we could hear them supporting us, and I’m glad we gave them the result they travelled for. I’m glad they got it.”
The rare happenstance of facing the same opponent on the same ground twice in the space of a week ended up helping Palace, Johnstone added, noting that defeat in the League Cup on Tuesday served as additional motivation.
The goalkeeper explained: “We put a great team performance in, stuck to our plan and we got the rewards. It wasn’t going to be easy at a place like this. They’re a good team and good players, but we worked really hard and the result went our way, which was brilliant.
“It was a weird one, coming here on Tuesday and then again on a Saturday, but we probably didn’t put the correct performance in on Tuesday and we wanted to put that behind us, put it right and show everyone that we’re a better team than we showed on Tuesday.
“We worked hard. The lads dug in. it was tough, but we got the result, which makes it better."