Swansea City's retained list served as a reminder of the major squad change that once again lies ahead this summer.
In addition to first-team squad members Korey Smith, Yan Dhanda and Ben Hamer, youth goalkeepers Jamie Searle, Nico Defreitas-Hansen and Josh Gould all departed the club. A total of 12 academy players are also leaving the Swans this summer, with Cameron Evans being the only one of those to have made a senior appearance for the club.
After taking the exits of loan players Hannes Wolf, Cyrus Christie and Finley Burns into account, Russell Martin has just 26 players in his squad who have featured for the first team. Of those, only 16 have made more than 12 appearances for the senior side.
When you delve deeper, those figures appear highly likely to drop even further given that certain players - including Ryan Bennett - are expected to be offloaded.
Quite simply, there is an immense amount of transfer work to be done at the Swansea.com Stadium. Plans have long been in place to strengthen a number of areas while targets have been identified to bolster positions which may become weakened.
But a quick glance at the contract status of certain players shows the long-term requirement for the top brass at the Swansea.com Stadium. Bennett, Ryan Manning, Jamie Paterson, Joel Latibeaudiere, Tivonge Rushesha, Dan Williams, Jordon Garrick and Ollie Cooper all see their contracts expire in just over a year.
It means the Swans now have 16 players who have made an appearance for the first team under contract beyond the summer of 2023. Of course, the situation isn't entirely new for Swansea, or any Championship club for that matter.
But Swansea are now set to enter their fifth consecutive campaign in the second tier and their second without Premier League parachute payments having also had to factor in the brutal financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The task is getting harder and harder to balance the books and ensure the personnel on the pitch can compete for a top-six spot, hence the recruitment of Russell Martin and his coaching staff who were tasked with developing assets by implementing a bold playing style.
But with little more than two months to go until the start of the 2022/23 season, the full scale of Swansea's rebuild project has been fully laid bare as the club bid to free up the funds required which will afford them the opportunity to bring in a number of new recruits ahead of pre-season.
