With the new Premier League season almost upon us, clubs are busy signing players and getting their squads into shape. Plenty of transfers have already gone through, but an unusual deal was struck this week between Crystal Palace and Everton to garner a little extra attention.
A source told ESPN on Monday that the two clubs have reached a deal that will see Palace winger Brennan Johnson and Everton winger Dwight McNeil make a rare straight swap with no monetary fees exchanged either way.
Both players are expected to undergo medicals at their new clubs on Monday before putting pen to paper on four-year contracts.
Though the term is regularly used when players move between clubs as part of the same transfer negotiations, there have actually been comparatively few true "straight swap" deals (i.e, player for player without any additional fee) to take place in the upper echelons of the game.
Alexis Sánchez and Henrikh Mkhitaryan
The swap deal that took Alexis Sanchez to Man United and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Arsenal resulted in neither doing particularly well. Getty Images Perhaps the highest-profile straight swap to take place in recent years saw winger Sanchez leave Arsenal in January 2018 to sign for Manchester United, who allowed Mkhitaryan to move in the opposite direction to help balance the deal.
Sanchez looked to be on the brink of signing for Manchester City at one point, but the club ultimately balked at the Gunners' desired £35 million transfer fee and ended their pursuit. This allowed rivals United to muscle in and pry the Chile star away from the Emirates by offering Mkhitaryan as part of their negotiations. The Armenia international's transfer was also conveniently valued at £35 million, allowing the two clubs to conduct the trade smoothly.
"We lose a world-class player and we gain a world-class player," Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger said at the time, summing things up succinctly, though it's fair to suggest that neither player excelled at his new club in the aftermath.
Sanchez made 43 appearances in a 2½ year spell at United, scoring just five goals. Meanwhile, Mkhitaryan lasted just two years at Arsenal, scoring nine goals in 59 games.
The pair eventually ended up as teammates at Inter Milan, where Mkhitaryan remains to this day, and they won the 2023-24 Serie A title together.
Jose Antonio Reyes and Julian Baptista
The Sanchez-Mkhitaryan deal wasn't the first time that Arsenal had found themselves involved in a straight-swap transfer.