Crystal Palace and Everton are exploring an unusual winger-for-winger move that would send Brennan Johnson and Dwight McNeil in opposite directions. Sources close to the situation told TEAMtalk that financial regulations make a straight swap deal “very difficult”, though not impossible. The football side is obvious enough. The accounting side is where it gets messy.

Johnson's Palace spell

Johnson’s move to Palace was a £35 million January signing from Tottenham Hotspur, and Palace now view him as one of their big-money disappointments. GiveMeSport say he has failed to score in 18 appearances for the club, and he has only one assist in that sample. Henry Swain, speaking on Let's Talk Palace, was blunt about what he has seen: “I'm not sure about the mentality I've been seeing from Brennan Johnson since his signing. One assist at the end of a Conference League game... other than that, he hasn't offered anything.”

There is a reason Palace are open to moving on quickly. A £35 million attacker with one assist in 18 games is not the return anyone had in mind, and the criticism has only grown louder because his performances have not given the club much reason to wait.

McNeil's Everton situation

McNeil is in the final 12 months of the five-year deal he signed when he arrived at Everton from Burnley in 2022. TEAMtalk say Palace were interested in him in January and remain keen now, and sources close to the talks say Johnson and McNeil share representatives, which has helped make the discussions easier to handle.

The Everton side of this makes sense too. McNeil has played 297 minutes across his latest five Everton matches, an average of 59.4 minutes per appearance, so he has not been locked in as an untouchable starter. That is the sort of usage that can open the door to a move if the right offer and the right structure are there.

The difficulty is still the same one that hangs over the whole idea. Both clubs like parts of the deal, but a straight swap needs valuations and regulations to line up, and that remains the hard part. For now, the talks are about whether a rare exchange can be made workable before anyone starts treating it as a done deal.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 5 outlets. How we work →