Harry Maguire is now expected to complete an £80m move to Manchester United this summer.

It's a story that's gone on for a year now - isn't wasn't exactly a secret that they tried to get it done under Jose Mourinho last summer.

But now it looks as though Leicester City are going to get the world-record fee that they wanted back then.

It would surpass the current record for a defender, the £75m Liverpool paid Southampton in January 2018 for Virgil van Dijk.

Now, if Maguire has anything like that kind of impact, the £80m will end up looking like a perfectly reasonable price.

Yes, it is a lot of money, but United are in need of a solid defence - Maguire may provide that.

Although, it may never quite feel like a bargain if a report from 2013 is to be believed.

The Mirror claimed back then that David Moyes was 'monitoring' Maguire's performances for Sheffield United.

And this was a time when Maguire was valued at just £4m - undoubtedly a bargain now.

It's worth adding that Sir Alex Ferguson had initially pointed United in the defender's direction but left before pursuing anything, of course.

So then it was onto Moyes, who clearly liked something in Maguire.

As for why it never went beyond that, we don't know.

Maguire would go on to move to Hull City a year later, and Leicester three years after that.

He's now got 20 England caps - as well as a goal at the World Cup - pushing his value towards £80m, at least according to Leicester and United.

Would he have progressed the same way at United over the last six years? We'll never know. All they can hope for now is that he's worth the wait - and the extra cash.