Liverpool urged to strike 'perfect' swap deal for Ivan Toney

Liverpool have been urged to strike a 'perfect' swap deal for Ivan Toney by former striker Stan Collymore. Does it actually make any sense, though?

Ivan Toney has long been at the forefront of transfer rumour mills, with frequent links to the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea. Scoring 20 Premier League goals, as he did last season, will do that.

Of course, Toney hasn't played for eight months now after a suspension for betting. He's now back - and right in the middle of a transfer window. Naturally, the old stories have come about again.

Toney has stoked the flames a little more, too, as he admitted he wants to join a 'top club competing for trophies' in an interview with Sky Sports. Could Liverpool be that club?

Former Red Stan Collymore thinks so, as he made the case for the transfer in his column for CaughtOffside. He believes it's 'perfect' and that Liverpool should make it a swap deal.

“For me, if Liverpool decided to come calling, that would be perfect,” said Collymore.

“I know they already have an embarrassment of riches in forward areas but if any of them were offloaded in the coming months, the Brentford star could be a great addition. I rate Toney so highly that I could see him in between [Mohamed] Salah and [Luis] Diaz.

“Liverpool will likely look at him and say ‘not for us’ but if I was the Reds, I would genuinely be inclined to let [Cody] Gakpo go, who I don’t think will go on to become a prolific Liverpool striker, and replace him with Toney. If they offered Brentford cash and Gakpo, I wonder if the Bees would go for that?"

It's one that may well get people talking - but also makes essentially zero sense. Collymore is right that Gakpo will likely never be a prolific Liverpool strike but that's primarily because he's not even really a striker. Who is watching Gakpo and expecting a goal machine? He's a winger and a playmaker above all, not a true no.9.

And Liverpool do have a no.9 in Darwin Nunez. Signing Toney would make it a lot more difficult to put a team together, given they couldn't both play down the middle. Just not a transfer that the Reds would gain all that much from.

That's before acknowledging that this isn't an American league - you can't just send players to a new club without their say so. The chances of Gakpo signing off on a swap to Brentford are pretty much zero.

So all in all, it's probably not worth putting money on this one.