Crystal Palace and Everton have agreed a rare straight swap that would send Brennan Johnson to Goodison Park and Dwight McNeil to Selhurst Park. The deal has been described as two separate transfers and both players have been given the green light for medicals, but it is not being presented as fully complete yet. The real issue is how the clubs value the exchange under Premier League squad cost ratio rules.

The accounting side of the deal

BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team said the swap of McNeil and Johnson will technically be treated as two separate transfers and will be part of the assessment of the Premier League squad cost ratio regulations. They also said all swap deals still have to pass the league's fair market value checks.

That is where the structure becomes more interesting than the headline. Palace paid Tottenham £35 million to sign Johnson in January, and the BBC said a £20 million valuation for McNeil in a true swap would create a £10 million loss for Crystal Palace against that purchase. On paper, that is the sort of accounting wrinkle clubs do not love when they are trying to make a straight exchange look clean.

Why Palace are prepared to move Johnson on

The sporting case is easier to see. Johnson made 26 appearances for Crystal Palace after arriving in South London, but the source reporting says he failed to score. In the last five recorded Palace matches, he was not a game-breaking presence and never posted a goal in the supplied data.

By contrast, McNeil is being sold as a better fit for Palace's needs on the left side. He has appeared in five recent Everton matches and averaged 6.56 across those games. Palace nearly signed him on Deadline Day in January, but paperwork issues blocked the move, and the club are now back in for a player they already tried to land.

The move is not yet being described as done, and that distinction still matters. One report says the clubs have reached agreement and the players have been given the green light to undergo medicals, while another says McNeil is poised to join Palace and Johnson will go the other way. Either way, the direction is clear enough: Palace want a different type of wide player, and Everton are ready to move Johnson on.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →