Barnsley are looking to recruit between eight and 12 players this summer and will be 'ruthless' when negotiating deals.
While the coming summer could replicate last year's off-season with the number of players coming in and out of Oakwell both reaching double figures, head coach Lee Johnson hopes that it will not a late 'scramble' like a year ago.
Johnson told the Chronicle: "We will probably bring in between eight and 12 but that includes the players who are out of contract with us this summer. Signing that many will be difficult because we will have to have a good pre-season to blend them in.
"It sounded like the club had a bit of a scramble last summer but I want to go into pre-season with the majority of my squad in place then add a few sprinkles of genius at the end of the summer."
Johnson and the board have known which of this season's squad they will offer new contracts to for weeks but had been waiting to start official negotiations until they knew what division they would be in next season.
Jean Yves M'voto is expected to be released at the end of the season as are strikers Kane Hemmings and Leroy Lita while the future of young attackers George Maris, Rhys Oates and Nana Boakye-Yiadom is unknown. Captain Martin Cranie and his fellow centre-back Lewin Nyatanga are out of contract and Johnson has expressed a desire to keep them both.
But the head coach says the club will not wait long for answers, adding: "We're going to be ruthless. There are a lot of good players on the market who have shown interest in joining us so we won't leave offers for our out of contract players on the table for too long.
"We will offer the ones we want to retain what we think is good money for this division and, if they take too long to decide, we will move on to other targets. Then, if we haven't signed anyone at the end of the summer, we might go back to them."
Peter Ramage, another centre-back, will be a free agent when his contract runs out at Crystal Palace. He wants to stay but, at the age of 31 and with a history of injuries, he is not guaranteed to be offered a permanent deal.
Johnson has admitted he would like to make permanent the loans of Manchester United's Ben Pearson and George Waring from Stoke. He is keeping an eye on Blackburn's John O'Sullivan and Ryan Williams of Fulham who impressed for the Reds this season but are still under contract.
Johnson said: "I like John O'Sullivan. I think he's an excellent player and I know the club were very close to tying up a deal before but for whatever reason it didn't quite happen. If he's available we'd be interested.
"If Ryan Williams became available, a club like us would of course be interested. But you don't know the situation at this time of year because final decisions haven't been made or budgets set.
"Ryan and John are in a group of 50 20-23-year-olds that are really good players. It's not just us, a lot of clubs know that, including the parent clubs that own them. They'll want the best deal if they're going to move them on."
Johnson says he is looking to recruit in all outfield positions and knows what attributes to look for. He said: "We need willing runners. If we had a couple more of them on Tuesday night at Notts County we could have won 4-0. We need players with a good set of lungs, good game management and a winning mentality.
"We don't just want to sign them, we want to breed them in our academy. We will be coaching to our system and our format. If they fit into that, fantastic, but if they don't then they will move on.
"We're a decent pull for the division and I know that we can get good players in because of our location in the country and because people want to play in front of nine, ten, hopefully 13 or 14 thousand fans on a regular basis.
"We have failed this year. You expect a club like this to be in the top six."
