The Chelsea-Man United swap deal that explains the transfer window’s latest trend | OneFootball

Swap deals that don’t make much footballing sense are becoming part and parcel of the Premier League when summer rolls around.

We’ve seen a number of strange cases over the past year or so. The exchanging of academy products Tim Iroegbunam and Lewis Dobbin in separate deals between Everton and Aston Villa, each for a reported £9m, raised some eyebrows last June - with the selling of youth players injecting clubs with “pure profit” in their accounts. A couple of months later, dealings between Nottingham Forest and Newcastle saw rising midfield star Elliot Anderson move to the City Ground for £35m, while Forest’s backup Odysseas Vlachodimos, 30, joined the Magpies for £20m as part of the package - a baffling price that effectively meant Anderson joined for £15m and indicated that there were other factors at play.

This isn’t an exposé on the dodgy activities of Premier League clubs, because everyone knows what’s going on at this point. It was bound to happen once financial regulations - namely the league’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) - were tightened. Balancing the books has become an increasingly integral motivation to transfer business, and if there’s a way to work the system via a loophole while abiding by the letter of the law, teams will take advantage.

The latest potential swap deal to provoke confused expressions involves Christopher Nkunku and Alejandro Garnacho. One, a £52m Chelsea flop whose natural position on a football pitch remains all but unknown to Blues supporters; and the second, a Man United future superstar turned prima donna who can’t even hold down a starting place in Ruben Amorim’s hopeless first XI.

If ever a swap deal has looked like a lose-lose, it’s this one. Nkunku has only managed to flourish when playing far inferior opposition in the Conference League and hasn’t come close to touching his stellar form seen at RB Leipzig, which saw him net 70 goals and assist 55 times in 172 appearances to earn admirers at Europe’s elite clubs. Garnacho, meanwhile, can do damage with his pace and technical ability but seems a nightmare to deal with in the dressing room, only this week enraging United fans by posting a picture wearing fellow Amorim exile Marcus Rashford’s Aston Villa shirt in what was an apparent public dig at the Portuguese boss.

Yet, according to various reputable sources, the upper brass at Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford are exploring a move that sees each problem child go the other way. Is this another example of a PSR-motivated swap deal? Perhaps.

Christopher Nkunku has failed to hit the heights expected of him at Chelsea (Getty Images)

Alejandro Garnacho’s poor attitude has left him completely out of favour under Ruben Amorim (REUTERS)

Under PSR, every player has an amortised value in club accounts. When a player is signed, their transfer fee is amortised - or spread - across the entirety of their contract. For example, if a player arrives for £100m on a five-year-contract, amortisation means that fee is listed as £20m per year for five years in the club accounts. It’s why clubs like Chelsea are handing players these ludicrous nine-year contracts, so their yearly value in the accounts is less.

Once a player is on the club’s books, their amortised value decreases every year. Take our £100m signing example - two years into his five-year contract, his amortised value will be £60m. Let’s then say he gets sold for £75m.

In contrast to the spreading out of player purchases, sales of players are typically counted in full in one year's accounts. And even though his departure fee is £25m less than the club originally paid for him, it will read at £15m profit in the club’s accounts due to the fact it is higher than his amortised value of £60m.

This, in short, means player sales can often do more good to the accounts than player arrivals do damage, even if the transfer fees are the same. As such, if Garnacho and Nkunku were swapped for the same price in separate deals, it would appear as profit in both clubs’ respective financial reports.

However, PSR is likely not the only reason Chelsea and Man United are looking into this peculiar transaction of Premier League undesirables. Nkunku is sitting on a reported £195,000-per-week contract that still has four years left on it. There is no team in Europe that would ever dream of matching that eye-watering wage, meaning unless the Frenchman takes a pay-cut, he’s priced out any suitor on the continent. Garnacho, meanwhile, is reportedly paid a more manageable £50,000-per-week but his deal runs out in 2028, meaning United will not let the Argentinian go for cheap, out of favour or not. This, again, will likely mean he will cost too much for any interested European party.

This leaves both teams with limited options. They can keep hold of their problematic assets, already out of sync with the club, and hope for a miraculous turnaround in performances. They can pray that the riches of Saudi football come calling, but that crucially relies on Nkunku, 27, and Garnacho, 20, being willing to swap elite European football for cold hard cash in a subpar division. Or, which in this case looks most pertinent, the two clubs can look at each other in similar boats and offer to swap problems in the hope that it hits.

Chelsea could opt to swap their Nkunku problem for Man United’s Garnacho woe in the hope it hits (REUTERS)

Garnacho riled United fans by posting a picture wearing fellow Amorim exile Marcus Rashford's Aston Villa shirt on Instagram (Instagram/Alejandro Garnacho)

If the third is true, the best case scenario will see new Premier League surroundings finally unlock the potential of Nkunku and Garnacho, reigniting two careers that have stalled in recent times. But even if such a fairytale revival doesn’t come to fruition, with Chelsea and United instead just inheriting two uninspiring players, both clubs would have nonetheless experienced a PSR boost.

This could act as the latest transfer trend for clubs, who through their financial superiority have alienated the rest of Europe, to overcome the perils that stringent financial regulations pose in the modern game. On the pitch, it makes little to no sense. But in the books, it could make all the difference, turning fringe footballers into fiscal pawns in the ever-convoluted game of PSR chess.