Wolverhampton Wanderers could sell Conor Coady for as little as £17m in the January transfer window.

What's the talk?

That's according to the Express & Star journalist Luke Hatfield, who claimed in a recent interview with GIVEMESPORT that, following Newcastle United's reported interest in the centre-back ahead of the winter market, Jeff Shi could decide to cash in on the 28-year-old for a figure as low as £17m.

Speaking about the Magpies' interest in Coady, Hatfield said: "If an offer of between £17m and £20m came in, I think a lot of Wolves fans would probably look at that and say it might be worth doing."

Fans would be fuming

Considering just how important a part of the Wolves team Coady has proven himself to be in recent years, in addition to the fact that Bruno Lage is already extremely short of options in the heart of his defence, should the club indeed part with the England international for a figure as low as Hatfield states, fans would surely be fuming.

Indeed, over his 10 Premier League appearances this season, the £22.5m-rated defender has helped his side keep two clean sheets and has chipped in with one goal, as well as making an average of one interception, 0.9 tackles, 2.7 clearances and winning 2.1 duels per game.

These returns have seen the player who Fabio Silva dubbed an "amazing guy" average a SofaScore match rating of 6.95, ranking him as Wolves' eighth-best performer in the league.

Furthermore, with both Willy Boly and Romain Saiss looking unlikely to be unavailable for Wolves in January as a result of their potential involvement in the Africa Cup of Nations, in addition to summer signing Yerson Mosquera suffering a high-grade hamstring injury towards the end of September, Coady could very realistically be one of only two options Bruno Lage could call upon at centre-back come the turn of the year.

As such, considering the sheer turmoil Coady's departure would cause, £17m appears to be an extremely low valuation of the defender - with £30m, at the very least, sounding an amount that is much more likely begin temping Shi into the sale of the £62k-per-week club captain.

In other news: Shi plotting Jan bid for "irresistible" £51k-p/w gem who'd solve Wolves' biggest issue