You might remember last summer. That one where almost everything was terrible, almost nothing good happened and… well, almost nothing happened full stop. It wasn’t just a non-entity – it was a step backwards.

After promises of a significant refresh which ultimately amounted to our club captain and most valuable defender leaving, it felt a bit like that Leeds United tweet on deadline day in 2014. Brace yourselves for the new… here’s Danny Ward and Daniel Amartey in your starting XI every week!

The lack of incoming transfers dominated discussion like Brian Blessed with a megaphone, but ultimately that was an overblown issue hiding the more serious one: we couldn’t get rid of anyone. The wage-to-revenue ratio stood at 86%, dominated by squad-puffing players our manager didn’t even want to use. And so, amid the impossible struggle between acceptable loss-cutting and trying to build for the future sensibly, we did nothing.

But 2023 will not be like this. Brendan Rodgers promised his ill-fated refresh in February last year, but this time he’s got proper ammunition when he says that we’ll see “a big transition of the squad” over these next two transfer windows. Because between now and the end of the summer, signing new players will be an essential result of actually being able to let others go this time.

This summer, the shambolic output-to-salary imbalance will start to be redressed when Ryan Bertrand, Caglar Soyuncu and Ayoze Perez will all leave when their contracts run out. Papy Mendy will most likely follow them, as will Youri Tielemans, albeit in different circumstances. (Daniel Amartey and Jonny Evans are up for renewal too, but fresh contracts are expected – albeit one with altered terms for the permacrocked latter.) We’ll most likely try to shove Jannik Vestergaard and Dennis Praet out the door marked Do One again – efforts so far thwarted by comedy wages, but which have better chances of succeeding this time as the pair go into the final years of their contracts. Hamza Choudhury, meanwhile, has hopefully done well enough at Watford to get himself a permanent transfer, with the club having extended his contract to 2024 upon sending him out on loan.

WHO’LL BE LEFT*?

GKs Danny Ward (contracted to 2025), Daniel Iversen (2025), Alex Smithies (2024)
DFs Ricardo Pereira (2026), James Justin (2026), Timothy Castagne (2025), Luke Thomas (2024), Wout Faes (2027), Jonny Evans (TBC), Daniel Amartey (TBC), Jannik Vestergaard (2024)
MFs Wilfred Ndidi (2024), Boubakary Soumaré (2026), Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (2027), Harvey Barnes (2025), Marc Albrighton (2024)
STs Jamie Vardy (2024), Patson Daka (2026), Kelechi Iheanacho (2024)

WHO’S OFF*?

Ryan Bertrand, Caglar Soyuncu, Papy Mendy, Youri Tielemans, Ayoze Perez (all 2023), Hamza Choudhury (2024), James Maddison (2024), Dennis Praet (2024)

*probably

But the club know full well that there’s a big old elephant in the (treatment) room too. With one more year left on his deal and no sign of a renewal, surely not even the most optimistic Leicester fan is envisaging James Maddison staying much beyond his summer jollies. For the player, there is literally no reason to commit – Champions League football awaits at a more exciting club who’ll be able to give it to him next year. For us, he’s our last big asset to flog. Someone needs to pay for this rebuild and we won’t – can’t – let him go for nothing.

Even if one or both of Vestergaard and Praet do end up staying, that’s still a lot of likely exits to cover up. The question of how – to what extent Rodgers will be backed – and who are questions that could begin getting answered sooner rather than later.

First of all, Top seems to have shaken the piggy bank for this window: a centre-back is “definitely something in the pipeline”, while a left-back and – do try not to laugh – a right winger are serious priorities. Presumably nestled alongside a fairy, a mermaid and a proven unicorn at the highest level.

After months of gardening leave, thumb-twiddling and frustration, this is now Martyn Glover’s time to shine. The good news is that Southampton’s former recruitment chief is vastly experienced trawling Europe for hidden gems of a certain youthful profile, and working to a modest budget. The kind of work that unearthed £15m Wout Faes from mid-table in France, and might next snare Copenhagen's 20-year-old left-back Victor Kristiansen, who looks likely to join this month for around £5-8 million.

#lcfc transfer news: Leicester target #FCCopenhagen Victor Kristiansen for January move. Nothing agreed yet, but this one looks promising. Very highly-rated left-back. Story with @SamJDean https://t.co/bsGwWc6id6
— John Percy (@JPercyTelegraph) January 4, 2023

These are the waters we’re fishing in, and rightly so. Wages will surely be scrutinised more closely than before, and brought down accordingly. While Khun Top wrote in his Nottingham Forest programme notes of “building the club to a level where we are less reliant on player trading”, it’s hard to envisage a future where anything else can be the case. In a world where Leicester will forever trail commercially, the Premier League TV deal appears maxed out, and entire nation states are powering rivals to new heights, the ways to get and stay ahead are limited.

Signing the more experienced likes of Bertrand and Vestergaard to contracts of more than a year is surely the kind of burning experience that won’t be repeated. If the terms of future deals don’t make sense for the club, they need to walk away – Rodgers has found out the hardest way what happens when players turn out to be disastrously immovable. If Evans gets more than a year and is expected to be anything more than a reserve option next season, for example, then something is still very wrong.

But the point of all this is that we should be excited about what’s next. Not even a shiny new training ground or inbound stadium expansion can mask the fact that almost everything around the club feels stale right now – after an entire calendar year of nothingness, we’ve just played a Premier League game where only three of the starting XI joined after the summer of 2019. Rodgers blamed a “small squad” for the latest injury pile-up, when in fact there are just so many players at his disposal that he’s loathe to use. Assuming we can survive this wretched season, this is our biggest opportunity yet to rip things up and start again within our means.

Provided Perez makes it to HT, tonight's match will be the first time in 23 months that he's played at least 45 mins in three straight PL games.

Thought he did ok v Newcastle and Liverpool, but it does feel like a sign of the squad's lack of development in recent windows. #LCFC
— Jordan Blackwell (@JrdnBlackwell) January 3, 2023

What’s up next is likely to get scary – in reality, things are likely to feel worse before they get better, what with both Tielemans and Maddison set to fly the nest in one fell swoop. But this is also an opportunity to cut loose from the dreary void of now: new faces, new ambitions, new hope. God knows, the next lot might not get injured every five minutes.

So embrace the chaos to come. Things must change.

It’s the only fun we might have over the next few months.