Liverpool have been linked with a swap deal that could land them Victor Osimhen - but will it happen?
Liverpool have been quick to get much of their summer transfer business done this year, spending a total of £190m on Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez and Ármin Pécsi before the end of June. There's one signing that's dragging on, however - that of a new striker.
Various reports have suggested that their preference was to strike a deal for either Alexander Isak or Viktor Gyökeres, but with the former unlikely to leave Newcastle and the latter supposedly having set his heart on Arsenal, they have been forced to find an alternative solution.
Slowing everything down further is the fact that negotiations with Napoli over a deal to send Darwin Núñez to Serie A have stalled, with a significant gap emerging in the two teams' valuation of the Uruguayan. But while the financial necessity of selling Darwin has caused a delay, it may also have created an opportunity.
The details behind Liverpool & Napoli’s massive swap deal
The Evening Standard were the first to suggest that Liverpool had expanded negotiations with Napoli to incorporate a deal for Victor Osimhen that would see the Reds exchange the Nigerian striker for both Darwin and Federico Chiesa.
Since that initial report, TeamTalk have added their voice to the claim that negotiations are ongoing over a three-way deal that would potentially solve two issues at once, landing Liverpool a proven goalscorer and a natural number nine while getting shot of a player who failed to fill that role convincingly following a club record move from Benfica.
A deal would not, technically, be a 'true' swap deal - rather, it's almost certain that it would consist of three separate transactions, financially distinct but negotiated simultaneously.
The way that both the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules and UEFA's own financial regulations work means that straight swaps are simply less beneficial than buying and selling players for cash. Incoming transfer spending can be amortised, spreading the cost over several years, while income from sales can all be put on the balance sheet at the same time. In the context of Liverpool's extensive spending, that would likely be a necessity.
Still, the impact of the trade would be the same - Liverpool get a proven goalscorer and move a pair of players who struggled to hit the high notes at Anfield on. As one might imagine, however, negotiating such a complex deal won't be easy.
The gulf between the two sides' valuation of Darwin remains an issue. Osimhen's asking price is effectively fixed by a reported €75m (£63.9m) release clause, and with Liverpool rating Darwin at close to £60m, they feel that a straight trade of Chiesa and Darwin for Osimhen would represent fair value.
Napoli, however, disagree. The Evening Standard claim that the Italian champions want £17m in cash on top of the two players, highlighting the challenges of completing any transfer which sends Darwin to Serie A this summer.
In short, any deal between the two teams will probably take time to negotiate, and there's no guarantee that the convoluted swap deal currently on the table would come off. But perhaps the real question is whether Liverpool should simply bite the bullet and pay the extra money that Napoli seem to want.
Why Victor Osimhen is worth gambling on as Liverpool search for a new striker
While Liverpool certainly didn't struggle for goals last season - they netted 14 more than any other team in the Premier League - all too few of them came from the number nine position.
That wasn't too much of a problem given the remarkable form of Mohamed Salah, but with the Egyptian having just turned 33 this month it's sensible to acknowledge the fact that he won't be able to maintain his staggering high standards forever, and that relying on him next season would be something of a risk. Even the greatest fall off eventually.
The addition of Wirtz, who has scored 34 goals over the past two years in all competitions at club level, will help to pick up any slack, but adding a player like Osimhen, who scored 26 goals when Napoli won the Scudetto in 2022/23, would seem to offer a belt and braces approach to ensuring a steady supply of goals.
There is some reasonable doubt over whether Osimhen's excellence that season is easily repeatable. The following year, with Napoli struggling to defend their title, he scored 15 times in the league, slightly undershooting his xG and looking a little less threatening and certainly less consistent than he had the year before.
He managed another 26-goal league haul over the 2024/25 season following his curious loan move to Galatasaray, at least, but Turkish Süper Lig defences are, perhaps, a little easier to terrorise, and that doesn't necessarily offer absolute proof that he's back to his lethal best. Granted, he did give Tottenham Hotspur's defence conniptions in the Europa League back in November, scoring twice and proving utterly impossible for Spurs to deal with. One can debate how much of an achievement that is, given how poor Spurs were at the back at times over the past season, but he still looked a cut above a Premier League team.
And he's still hit double figures in seven consecutive seasons across four different countries. There's a valid question as to whether the heights he hit in 2022/23 are a ceiling that he won't easily reach again (although at 26 years old, it's not as if he's running out of time), but all the evidence suggests that his floor, at least, is very high indeed. The worst case scenario for Liverpool seems distinctly palatable.
And he's undeniably a more reliable goalscorer than Darwin, who has flashed brilliance but largely failed (and flailed) in front of goal - and more reliably available than Chiesa, whose seemingly endless injury issues have limited what seemed set to be an exceptional career. Ultimately, it would Napoli taking the bigger gamble in a swap deal between Darwin’s form and Chiesa’s fitness.
Only Liverpool know whether an extra £17m on top of their transfer spending this year represents a genuine economic problem, but if it doesn't then this seems like about as safe of a bet as exists in football. The worst of Osimhen still seems to be an awful lot better than the worst of Darwin, after all.
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