In the last two summers, Manchester United have waved goodbye to seven senior players with more than 1,500 games for the club, letting World Cup winners, title winners, players of the year and academy graduates depart without recouping a fee for any of them.
But the exodus has saved in excess of £75million a year off the wage bill and it is finally allowing football director John Murtough and Erik ten Hag to bring the contract situation under control at Old Trafford.
Nemanja Matic, Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard, Paul Pogba, Edinson Cavani, Phil Jones and David de Gea were the seven players to leave when their contracts expired and it's hard to make a case that the wrong decision was made in any instance. Pogba has been plagued by injury at Juventus, Lingard had little impact at Nottingham Forest, and none of Matic, Mata or Cavani were really missed last season.
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Jones' woeful luck with injuries meant his time was always going to be up this summer and it was time to move on from De Gea. If United complete a deal to make Andre Onana their new No. 1 goalkeeper then it will vindicate that switch in goalkeeping priorities.
It is the departure of Jones and De Gea that sums up the folly of some of United's recent contract decisions. Under the leadership of Ed Woodward, there was a desire to use contract extensions to protect the value of players, but all it did was create an unsustainable wage structure and mean that players were almost unsellable if they didn't perform.
Jones was handed a four-year deal in February 2019 but he was already prone to injuries and managed just 16 starts after that contract was awarded. Later that year De Gea was made the best-paid goalkeeper in the world despite ending the season in dreadful form. Those contracts have cost United.
But the departure of those seven senior players has eased the wage burden, as has Cristiano Ronaldo leaving the club last November. In their most recent accounts, United's wages-to-turnover ratio was 50%, which is excellent for a club of their stature.
There is also one major contract renewal left to deal with. United sources insist they are "in good shape" with an extension for Marcus Rashford, whose current deal expires next summer. The academy graduate's 30 goals in Ten Hag's first season have altered the dynamic of talks, but Old Trafford figures are optimistic a new contract can be agreed and it is understood an agreement isn't far away.
That will give Rashford a significant wage hike, although he has earned it with his performances over the last year. His negotiation position is considerably more powerful than it was when Ten Hag arrived and he was coming off the back of a season in which he had managed just five goals.
But beyond finalising a new contract for Rashford, there is little else to concern United on the horizon. Brandon Williams, Alex Telles, Eric Bailly and Fred are among the players out of contract in 2024, but all are expected to be sold this summer.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Victor Lindelof and Anthony Martial are also out of contract next summer, but United have a one-year option on all of those players. None of the trio would be considered priority renewals at the moment.
Wan-Bissaka could yet be sold at some point if funds are found for a new right-back, while Martial's future is also uncertain. Ten Hag praised the striker regularly last season but his constant injury absences became an issue and he ended the season in poor form as well.
So Rashford is the only contract situation that will be of any concern to United at the moment and that is heading towards a positive resolution. Beyond that, there are no worries about players who could leave and no major issues over high earners with a significant length of time left on their deals.
It's taken a couple of years to achieve, but United are now past the folly of Woodward's contract strategy and in a much better position with their squad.
