15 years ago, £20 million might have got you a top-quality, Champions League-level centre-forward – a Didier Drogba or Fernando Torres.
These days, it gets you an Adam Webster, Jarrod Bowen or Neal Maupay.
As the finances have sky-rocketed in English football, so too have the transfer fees. So why on earth would Cardiff City sell Kieffer Moore, a Wales international and their 20-goal top scorer, for as little as £7 million during the last week of the window?
At 29, the late-blooming target man is in the form of his life.
Keeping him at the Cardiff City Stadium could also be the difference between a mid-table finish and another coupon-busting promotion as Mick McCarthy looks to emulate the achievements of the equally battle-scarred Neil Warnock in South Wales.
- ‘BIZARRE’: Manager laughs off reports linking star man with Wolves
But when quizzed about reports linking Moore with a shock switch to Wolves following last night’s EFL Cup defeat to Brighton, the honest, straight-talking McCarthy did little to quell the fears of Cardiff supporters.
Wolves want Kieffer Moore but how much are they willing to pay?
“If someone else comes in and offers some crazy fee, I’m sure it will be considered. But, until that happens, I can’t do anything about it,” McCarthy told Wales Online, albeit while insisting no-one had made an approach for the one-time Yeovil Town man yet.
“If I was a Premier League side, would I be interested? I probably would, depending on who they are, of course. There’s speculation around players all the time.
“We all love Kieffer here and want him to keep him – but we’ll see.”
The question is, would Moore swap guaranteed first-team football at Cardiff for a bench-warming back-up slot at Molineux?
Given his 30th birthday isn’t a million miles away, Moore may never get a better chance to play Premier League football.
Here’s what some Cardiff City fans on Twitter had to say about Wolves’ interest in their star striker:
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