It had to happen sometime.
Derek McInnes’ work in building an Aberdeen team capable of challenging for honours in Scottish football has been a pragmatic, brick by brick approach thus far.
Key to that rebuilding process has been the Dons’ ability to get on with their work while retaining their talent.
The Dons manager has been fortunate to retain his key personnel and strengthen the parts of his team as and when possible with each passing season.
Having added to his attacking options with the additions of Jayden Stockley and Miles Storey this summer a goalkeeper to fill the void left by star loan signing Danny Ward is the next piece in the Aberdeen manager’s jigsaw.
But the focus has switched overnight from who could be coming into Pittodrie to who could be departing with Wigan Athletic reportedly showing a strong interest in Jonny Hayes.
That any side should be looking Aberdeen’s way is no surprise. After all, the Dons have established themselves as the second best team in the country behind champions Celtic and they are about to embark on their third European campaign in a row at the end of the month.
If they are to go into the new season without Hayes, their talismanic figure out wide, it is going to take substantially more than a reported bid of £500,000 to turn a single head at Pittodrie.
Hayes was Aberdeen’s best player last season. He scored some key goals, created many more, and generally ran full backs ragged most weeks, leading to him being shortlisted for the PFA Scotland player of the year.
That form led to him breaking into the Republic of Ireland squad and he can consider himself extremely unlucky not to have made the final squad heading to France for next week’s European Championship.
He is 29 next month, in the best form of his career and has two years remaining on his contract.
Why then would Aberdeen even entertain the notion of selling him for such a paltry sum?
That’s the question every Dons fan is asking themselves right now and you can be sure it is a sentiment being shared within Pittodrie.
McInnes is on holiday at the moment but no doubt he has heard of Wigan’s reported interest by now. I’d wager he took one look at the figure quoted, laughed, then put his phone down.
And so he should.
The first question a manager should ask himself is ‘can I replace this player for that amount of money?’ and we know the answer is no.
If Stuart Armstrong was worth £1.5million to Dundee United then Hayes is easily worth the same amount if not more to the Dons.
This is not a player who has asked to leave. Hayes is under contract, settled in the area and playing for his team every week.
If the Dons decided to sell one of their crown jewels for anything less than a seven figure sum will provoke outrage among the support.
The manager knows it, his board knows and the fans know it too.
If Gary Caldwell wants the wee Irish fella he is going to have to pay well for him.