In a summer where Harry Kane wants to move to greener pastures and Manchester United finally put their hands in their pockets to land Jadon Sancho, you'd have thought Harry Maguire's £80m record would've been blown out of the water by now.
Especially when there is also interest in Jack Grealish and Declan Rice, who are coming off the back of helping England reach their first major final in 55 years.
After those two is the insanely wealthy Manchester City and Chelsea, for whom money has never seemed an object.
Manchester United's Harry Maguire remains the most expensive English transfer of all time
United are on the verge of signing Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund for £73million
City spent a total of £160m last summer while Chelsea splurged in excess of £200m all while coronavirus was wreaking havoc on economies around the world.
City are owned by Sheik Mansour, who has an estimated net worth of $17billion and a family fortune of at least $1 trillion. Yet Pep Guardiola would still have you believe they can't afford a striker this summer.
Chelsea are owned by Roman Abramovich, who Forbes have as the 8th richest sports owner in the world. Since he took over the club in 2003, Chelsea have splashed out over £2billion on transfers. They draw the line though on spending £100m on 22-year-old Rice.
With Grealish, City may well yet be prepared to pay Aston Villa's asking price but it is the player who is having second thoughts.
Should that deal not materialise, at least it would free up funds for Guardiola to go full throttle to try and get Kane.
City are desperate to sign a striker this summer after Sergio Aguero left on a free to join Barcelona and Kane is one of their many targets.
The player wants to leave Tottenham to pursue his ambitions of winning trophies but Daniel Levy has other ideas and is digging his heels in.
Harry Kane could overtake Maguire if he ends up leaving Tottenham this summer for £100m
