Cardiff City's planning for next season can now start in earnest.
The Bluebirds have handed Steve Morison a contract for next term, announcing the news after the 1-0 win over Derby County on Tuesday night.
Morison himself has said that recruitment will be the "biggest key" in ensuring the long-term success of the club moving forward and few would disagree with him.
While much of that will centre around which players will be signed in the summer and beyond, there are important conversations to be had regarding players who are already at the club.
Yes, there are 10 players who are out of contract in June and those talks will be hurtling along at a rate of knots in the coming weeks, no doubt.
But there are also eight players who are currently out on loan; Josh Murphy (Preston North End), Gavin Whyte (Oxford United), Ciaron Brown (Oxford United), James Connolly (Bristol Rovers), Chanka Zimba (Northampton Town), Keenan Patten (Hereford), Tom Sang (St Johnstone) and Kieron Evans (Linfield).
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Given we are unsure about the club's financial situation heading into next season, with three lawsuits worth in excess of £40m hanging over their heads and set to be concluded in the coming months ( You can read more about that here ), it is reasonable to assume at least some of the players currently out on loan will have parts to play with the first team in the 2022/23 campaign.
Murphy's contract is up at the end of the season and he is unlikely to be offered a new one. The same can also be said for defender Brown.
The other six, though, could all have shots at impressing Steve Morison and that is how they must be viewing these loan stints away from the Welsh capital.
With focus very much on first-team efforts, contracts and avoiding relegation, Morison and his staff could be forgiven for their out-on-loan players being put on the back-burner a little.
But that is by no means the case. Morison has demanded detailed and meticulously put-together reports on each player after every game they play for their respective clubs.
While the success of the players has varied wildly, it looks as though two players, at present, are really impressing; James Connolly at Bristol Rovers and Gavin Whyte, almost a forgotten man at Cardiff, at Oxford United.
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Connolly, 20, has played all 90 minutes of the 11 matches in which he has featured for the Gas in the league, which has coincided with a run of six wins and only one defeat. It has seen Joey Barton's side rocket up the League Two table to ninth place and now firmly in the play-off mix.
Whyte, meanwhile, has played a crucial part in getting Oxford up to fourth in League One. He has the second-most assists in the entire division with nine, proof that he has added that end product to his game.
And Morison spoke earlier this week about the work that goes on behind the scenes regarding the loan players and the feedback he has received on them thus far.
"They have been excellent," Morison said of his out-on-loan players.
"I make a couple of the guys, Jenks (Matthew Jenkins, first team data analyst) and Paddy (Patrick Deboys, recruitment analyst), they have to put a document on my desk after every time they play, telling me how they’ve got on, how they’ve done, minutes they’ve played. If they’ve gone to the game I need a report.
"Chanka has gone back to Northampton, it's his first training session after his injury.
"James Connolly has been, by the looks and sounds of it, excellent, part of a team that’s flown up the league under Joey Barton and he has played every single game.
"Kieron Evans’ last game got called off. Gavin Whyte is doing really well at the minute, Ciaron Brown has been in and out, Keenan Patten has started starting games now.
"Tom Sang has been in and out, he’s started the last two. We are fully across all of them.
"It’ll make them all better players and next season we’ll be able to look at them in a different light because it’ll stand them in good stead."
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