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There are two weeks remaining of the transfer window and already the spend in the Premier League in England has almost eclipsed every other total to date. £1.884bn pounds has changed hands between the top clubs, just £16m short of the record which was set last summer.

It has also been a summer in which Trevor Francis, the first million pound player, passed away and his death last month offers a reminder of just how much things have changed since he was breaking the record 44 years ago.

In 1979, the average price of a house cost £13,650 and a million quid was a stratospheric sum of money. Today, of course, it remains a tidy sum but does not feel quite nearly as much as it did then.

The previous record transfer for a footballer in British football had been the £516,000 paid by West Bromwich Albion to Middlesbrough for David Mills in January 1979.

When Nottingham Forest paid Birmingham City more than double the fee paid for Mills a month later, the press turned up in droves to cover the story. When Francis was asked whether the transfer fee might weigh heavily on his shoulders, he was sanguine about its significance. 

“I hope not, at the moment it certainly isn't,” said Francis on the day he was unveiled at the City Ground in February 1979. “I'm quite excited about it. I realise that when I get on that pitch I've just got to forget about it and just get on with playing. That's the most important factor.”

Unsurprisingly, Brian Clough, the Nottingham Forest manager, was unequivocally confident.

“He has all the equipment needed to be a highly successful player, " said Clough. “That's why we have invested £1m of Nottingham Forest's money. We don't have a formula apart from success.”

The Herald:

Of course, Francis would make good on Clough's prediction and pay back his transfer in spades just a couple of months later when he scored the winning goal against Malmo to give Forest their first European Cup.

Such value nowadays is much harder to measure. Already three times this summer clubs have paid more than £105m for Premier League players. Declan Rice kickstarted the run on 100 million pound men as he crossed London from West Ham to Arsenal. Relatively speaking it is the kind of outlay that will only be justified if Arsenal can end their long wait for a Premier League title. Harry Kane joined Bayern Munich for the same figure rising to £120m in add-ons and while a Bundesliga crown would sate the England captain's appetite for a major honour, the hierarchy at the Bavarian club will be expecting a Champions League to go with their 12th league title in a row. Moises Caicedo joined the gang when Chelsea forked out £115m – breaking the British record between two clubs – to Brighton for the Ecuadorian midfielder.

Chelsea have been the most active club in the window for the second summer in a row with their spend surpassing £350m and appear to show no signs of stopping with a number of wide forwards and central strikers still on their radar. Todd Boehly, the Chelsea owner, has clearly one eye on the future with the age profile of his signings and the other on Financial Fair Play regulations with the length of contracts that are being handed out on new arrivals.

Perhaps he might also do well to look at the number of players who can make a match day squad on any given weekend – because you would fancy Mauricio Pochettino will be dealing with a lot of disgruntled players in the months to come.