Cardiff City's summer promises to be an exciting ride, from an onlooker's perspective. The door will be revolving in and out so much that next season's starting XI will bear little to no resemblance to the one which started this campaign.
Given how this season began, many will view that as a positive. Things need freshening up and the upcoming window presents Cardiff with the biggest opportunity they have had in quite some time to do just that.
As a minimum, it is understood the club are looking to bring in 10 players. Should more players leave, it could be as many as 15. That is the size of the task at hand, but it is one which the club view as an opportunity to change their future for the better.
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Cardiff have been hamstrung by exorbitant wages, lengthy contracts and dwindling player values for too long and the next few months will go some way to trying to alter that and drag up both the club's value and their positioning in the Championship table.
There are 10 first-team players out of contract in June. The club are keen to keep hold of Joe Ralls, while talks are still ongoing regarding Sean Morrison's future. As for the other eight, well, it could be that they all leave for pastures new.
There has been talk in some circles of a wage cap being implemented at Cardiff from next season onwards, but it is understood they are working on an average wage structure. There is a figure Cardiff want all their first-team players' contracts to average out at, meaning if one player is offered a particularly high wage then it would affect the players on the lower end of the scale, with less scope to offer them more money.
That is the sort of predicament Cardiff find themselves in at the minute as they look to slash outgoings on wages. It looks likely that the wages of Ciaron Brown, Isaac Vassell, Alex Smithies, Aden Flint, Will Vaulks, Josh Murphy, Leandro Bacuna and Marlon Pack - all of whom were signed by Neil Warnock on largely favourable terms - will be off the bill come the end of the season.
And that might not be the end of the outgoings, either. Some players might not fit what Steve Morison and his coaching staff want to implement next season. James Collins is someone who might want to look for a club which is a better fit, given the changes which have been implemented since Mick McCarthy's departure. Collins has barely had a look-in after a poor start to the season and with Cardiff keen to add more forwards in the summer window, he might be one who moves on.
Gavin Whyte will come back from his loan at Oxford United, where he has enjoyed bright spells throughout the League One campaign. But he was signed on hefty money, too, when he joined from the League One club in 2019 and it is unlikely Cardiff will be able to keep forking out his wages when they are playing such a delicate balancing act elsewhere in the squad. If there is interest, Cardiff would have to entertain it.
Up front, again, there are Isaak Davies, Max Watters and Mark Harris all vying for one spot, with the general feeling being they would all have to play alongside a more physical type of striker to get the best out of them. Davies has enjoyed a breakthrough year, while the club paid a decent fee for Watters, so one would expect he will be given a sustained shot at some point to prove his worth. Harris' output will have to improve if he is to really muscle his way into the picture.
On the recruitment front, Cardiff need bodies all over the pitch; goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, wingers and forwards. Ryan Allsop at Derby County is someone who Cardiff have held an interest in, however it is understood there is fierce competition across the division for the shot stopper. Reports linking Millwall's Jed Wallace and Fulham's Michael Hector to the Bluebirds have not been given much credence by Cardiff sources. Wallace's current wages are way above what Cardiff would be willing to offer, anyway, and he, too, has suitors all over the Championship.
How Cardiff handle the loan market in the coming months will be interesting to follow. It's where they did their best work in the January transfer window.
We are told both Tommy Doyle and Cody Drameh are ongoing conversations, although Cardiff know there is interest in both. Bournemouth, it is understood, are just one club who are known to have already enquired about them and the wages they would be willing to offer, as an example, could blow Cardiff out of the water.
Drameh has made his feelings clear to Cardiff, though. If he is not guaranteed regular game time at Leeds United then he would be keen to countenance a move back to the Welsh capital. Leeds will likely want to keep hold of him for pre-season to assess him and Cardiff might not want to get into a similar situation that they had with Ryan Giles towards the back end of the January window. But Drameh has loved his time at City and if he felt it would be for the betterment of his career to have another year of regular football at Cardiff under his belt then he has shown he is headstrong enough to make that decision.
Doyle is also one which is not at all a damp squib. However, he could look to join a club with more feasible promotion credentials next term. What is positive from a Cardiff perspective, though, is that their relationship with Manchester City has strengthened immensely over the last few months thanks to Doyle's development. Cardiff have already been steered towards the next cabs off the rank, so to speak, at Manchester City, who want to get some of their more promising talents out playing Championship football next term. It is understood a couple have even been players coming in from abroad to join the Premier League outfit this summer.
Cardiff have meetings lined up with Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City in the next two weeks. They are also broadening their horizons to snare what they deem the best bargains out there. Their scouting will go from top-end Premier League teams to the Championship and right down to Non-League. They will even look abroad in the European market, which you can read more about here.
It's a huge rebuild but one with the idea of making the club more sustainable, as well as competitive, as it moves forward. There is no overstating the sheer size of the transfer task at hand but if this summer goes according to plan then the club will be left in a far better place for it.
