The jaw-dropping Liverpool and Newcastle United swap transfer deal that could break the internet

Liverpool may be cruising towards the league title this season, but that doesn’t mean that the future is entirely rosy for the Reds – change is coming this summer, with a number of needs presenting themselves in the transfer market regardless of whether the out-of-contract trio of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk stay or go.

The single biggest concern for Arne Slot is the front line. The only ‘genuine’ number nine on the books, Darwin Núñez, has struggled for consistency since arriving at Anfield and it’s fairly clear at this point that Slot doesn’t entirely trust him to deliver – and if Salah does leave, taking the club’s single most reliable source of goals in the process, then the need for a striker who can score with regularity will become even more acute. That’s where an especially outrageous story that’s rolled off the rumour mill comes in…

The Liverpool and Newcastle swap deal that would cause a sensation

This report comes from Football Insider, who claim that “sources” have told them that Liverpool are keen to strike a deal for Newcastle United’s free-scoring Swedish forward Alexander Isak – and that in order to afford him, they would sweeten a deal by offering Darwin in part-exchange.

Newcastle are widely reported to want a bare minimum of £100m for Isak, who has already scored 54 goals in his first 95 games for the Magpies – too rich for Liverpool’s blood, perhaps, so they will try to “tempt” Newcastle with the Uruguayan instead.

The Reds apparently value Darwin at around £60m (about £25m less than they paid for him three years ago, which should offer some idea of the starting point for any such negotiations. But is there any deal involving Darwin which would make sense from Newcastle’s side?

There are few metrics by which Darwin could be said to be superior to Isak, after all. Since signing from Benfica, he has managed 39 goals in 130 games – in the Premier League, he averages 0.47 goals for every 90 minutes he plays, which is actually thoroughly respectable, but still pales into insignificance next to Isak’s numbers. The Swede has 0.76 goals per 90 for Newcastle, and the speed at which he is scoring is trending upwards, something which can’t be said of Darwin.

Still, Darwin does average 0.61 expected goals per game, which is a strong number and a testament to the volume of good positions he can get into with his speed and physicality. It’s still fewer than Isak, but if he could find his finishing boots then there is every chance that Darwin could become an effective top-flight striker.

But that hasn’t happened yet. He is capable of the sublime but manages the ridiculous a little too often. There is a world in which the right coach, combined with a new-found sense of confidence, could get a first-rate goalscorer out of Darwin, but why would you take that chance when you already have a better goalscorer on the books?

Could PSR force Newcastle to sell Isak?

From a playing perspective, Newcastle have little incentive to sell Isak, who is under contract until 2028 – but from the financial picture could force them to consider it.

Newcastle were widely believed to be in danger of being unable to meet the Premier League’s profit and sustainability requirements coming into the summer of 2024, and eventually sold Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson, the latter for a seemingly inflated price, in order to make ends meet and avoid a potential points deduction. While the club’s finances are, more generally, in rude health, they will be acutely aware that selling a big-ticket player would generate a lot of breathing space.

At the same time, that exact consideration only makes what already sounds like an implausible swap deal even more unlikely – if a sale was necessitated, they would want it to be wholly in cash unless they really wanted the player offered in exchange. Unless Eddie Howe takes an optimist’s view on Darwin’s future output, it seems more likely that they would want to reinvest the money in a striker with a more proven output in the top flight, or perhaps a younger player who could grow into a £100m+ player themselves.

There are few ways to spin Football Insider’s eyebrow-raising story to make it sound plausible. Liverpool may well want to engineer such a deal (and it would be a fabulous piece of business from their perspective) but the incentive for Newcastle to consider it is limited at best. Perhaps if Darwin was an add-on to a deal which closed in on £100m in its own right, then it could be an option, but that would require Liverpool to drastically rethink their opinion of Darwin’s worth.

Swap deals are a rarity at the best of times, and the existing financial rules only make them even harder to negotiate. Perhaps there could be a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to buy and sell the players for pre-arranged prices separately to help with the financial side (precisely what appeared to happen with the deal which saw Anderson ‘swapped’ for Odysseas Vlachodimos), but the most likely outcome is that Newcastle rebuff offers for Isak and try to keep him for the long haul – or at least sell him for the most staggering fee they can find. If Liverpool want the Swede, they will likely have to pay top dollar.