So we'll be getting plenty off the wage bill this summer. This should give us some more wriggle room in the transfer market. By my reckoning (according to spotrac):
Slimani (£80k p/w) and Gray (£55k p/w) - although they've already left, we're still paying out wages until the end of the season.
Morgan (£60k p/w), Fuchs (£50k p/w), Jakupovic (£23k p/w) and James (£32k p/w) are all out of contract.
We'll also return to sender - Under (£94k p/w).
That's £20.5m off the wage bill from players currently contributing nothing. Hopefully, that gives us scope to secure Soyuncu, Ricardo and Tielemans onto new deals if they're interested in signing them.
Add to that, we'll be trying to sell off a few. The obvious candidates are: Benkovic (£32k p/w), Ghezzal (£45k p/w), Choudhury (£7.5k p/w), Amartey (£21k p/w). That would save another £5.5m. Ghezzal and Amartey have one year left on their contracts whereas Choudhury and Benkovic have two years. We could maybe get £15m for the lot.
When the main loanees return, that leaves us with:
Schmeichel, Ward, Iversen
Ricardo, Fofana, Soyuncu, Evans, Castagne, Thomas, Justin + New CB (rumoured Tarkowski) and LB (rumoured Gosens)
Mendy, Praet, Maddison, Tielemans, Ndidi, Dewsbury-Hall, Albrighton + New CM (rumoured Soumare)
Perez, Vardy, Iheanacho, Barnes, Sowah + New RW (several rumours) and CF (rumoured Edouard)
Even accounting for all the releases, and hopeful sales, we still have at least three too many here. If we make the CL, we may not need to sell a main player this summer but we'll need to lose others to generate some income - maybe a Praet and/or a Perez? Maybe the returning loanees will go out again. Who knows.