Southampton like any club relegated from the Premier League will have to cut their cloth, but the hope is that with the sale of several key players, the foundations of the squad will stay in place, however it is not just the star names that Saints will see go.
One of the issues this season has been the size of the squad and perhaps more importantly the fact although there was lots of quantity it was a lack of experienced quality, meaning that the squad at times was bloated and both Nathan Jones and Ruben Selles fell into the trap of using one of the fringe players instead of persevering with those that could win games of football.
In the summer there will be a rush to buy our star players, James Ward Prowse, Mohammed Salisu, Armando Bella Kotchap, Kyle Walker Peters, Romeo Lavia & Che Adams will all attract interest from Premier League clubs, that's the bad news, the good news is that the sale of just those 6 players will bring in somewhere between £150-200 million.
You could add Tino Livramento to that list, but I suspect that after being out for the season through injury, the big guns will want to wait until they see he makes a full recovery before committing big money in transfer fees and wages.
But there are a lot of other fringe players who will go, Moi Elyounoussi is out of contract and so is unlikely to be here, there will be no money coming in but it will get a hefty wage off the books.
You would think a lot of the younger players such as Sekou Mara, Juan Larios & Samuel Edozie will be staying put, likewise Joe Aribo, they are on good wages and are unlikely to find a Premier League suitor who will match them.
The grey area is Charly Alcatraz, Sulemana & Tall Paul Onauchu, they are on big wages but have not proved themselves in the Premier League, so to move they would potentially have to take a drop in income, they may prefer to stay another season even in the Championship, to maintain their income and get first team football.
One player who seems to be in demand though is Mislav Orsic, he was thought to be a prize catch back in January and it is hard to point the finger at where exactly things went wrong, almost immediately he seemed to fall out of favour with Nathan Jones and even when Ruben Selles took over his first team opportunities didn't improve.
But is seems he has admirers elsewhere and according to Gunebakis a Turkish media outlet based in the city of Trabzon , Trabzonspor have "made an official offer" for the Croatian.
Orsic joined Saints in January for a fee said to be around £6 million and is under contract at St Mary's until July 2025.
The issue won't be the transfer fee though, but the players wages, Saints got him cheaply due to his age, he turned 30 just before joining the club, but his wages could well be, at Southampton he will be on Premier League level wages, but he is unlikely to get that anywhere else whether in England, Europe or for that matter Asia as the City of Trabzon lies in the Asian side of Turkey.
Gunebakis claim that Trabzonspor would like to sign the Croatian on loan with an option to buy and have made their offer to both Southampton and the player.
They also claim that although Saints have yet to respond, that Orsic is "Warmly Interested" although he also has other interest from Turkey namely Galatasaray.
This seems to be heading for the same sort of situation that we encountered with Mario Lemina, we are unlikely to be able to get him off the books due to the high wages, therefore a permanent deal is not on the cards, however given his relatively low transfer fee, a loan deal might be feasible and would at least enable us to cover his wages.