Today one of the big rumours doing the rounds is that we are interested in signing Leicester City defender Harry Maguire for a whopping £60 Million.
We are not the only ones linked with a move for the England international, Chelsea and Manchester United are also said to be keen on signing the 26-year-old.
Maguire is a top talent and may well be worth the £60 Million being quoted but considering our financial restrictions, is it justified spending such an amount on one single player?
The rumours are that we will have roughly £45 Million to spend in the event that we do not qualify for next seasons Champions League, if we do then that figure will rise to a reported £70 Million.
There will be some player sales and that will apparently be added to the transfer budget and so it can be argued that we could have anything between £75 Million to £120 Million to spend depending on the amounts raised from sales and whether we win the Europa League or not.
Let’s work with that upper figure and assume we raise £50 Million in player sales and qualify for the Champions League next season.
Now let’s say we do spend £60 Million on Harry Maguire, that would leave us with £60 Million to spend.
I think most of us can agree we need at least a couple of defenders, at least two midfielders and one forward if we are to be competitive next season.
Spending £60 Million on one player means that we would still need to bring in another four players that would cost £60 Million in total.
If that is the case then you have to question what sort of quality we would be signing, it is always risky to assume we can spend low amounts and find a gem, that rarely happens, you have to spend big to get the quality and there is not much top quality in the £15 Million range.
Therefore, I find it difficult to justify spending half our possible transfer budget on just one player and if we fail to make next seasons Champions League that would be almost our entire transfer budget.
So, in conclusion, no, in my opinion, it is not justified spending £60 Million on just one player with our transfer budget.