Selling/releasing EVERY player at the club

Started unemployed and took the Osasuna job in late Nov, on a 2 year contract. The club was bottom of La Liga and I won only 1 in my first 10 games. No money to do anything in the Jan transfer window, I've stuck by the players and we managed 2 wins back to back, currently on a 1 loss in 6 form spell;) We are now out of the bottom 3 by 2 points, and with about 7 games to go either ourselves or Zaragoza will go down. They've imploded and I'm 75% sure we can stay up.

My question is this, most of my squad are proving to be massively short of the quality required for La Liga, with a couple of exceptions. Our run of form is entirely down to playing poor opponents who are either (a) managerless, (b) bigger bottlers than us © huge amounts of fortune. The 2 or 3 players who are reasonable, predictably, are out of contract in the summer and due to the clubs huge debts, I either can't or won't justify giving them £20-30k p/w which they want to renew.

I've not done a total club clearout before, but my thinking is sell/release everyone in the first team, B team and U18's who's not up to it or on high wages and rebuild from scratch. My scouts are turning up a number of decent prospects, and I reckon I'd need around £13m to sign around 18 of them to form the new first team squad.

Is there a limit in-game as to how low in numbers your squad can be at any one time? I realise this might also wreck morale too, but seeing as most will be on the way out I'm prepared to take that risk.

Any thoughts/advice?

There's no limit as such, if you can release them all then it will let you - but it's virtually impossible to do because they'll be a number of players who the board will refuse to let go because of the immediate cost of releasing them. They'll most likely refuse a mutual termination as well. Transfer list them, offer them for free if you like - and watch no-one come in for them.

I always have a problem getting rid of unwanted players for the above reasons!!

I'm pretty sure that you get given grants to cover the costs of YTS contracts. You should hold onto the u18s.

As above, the board won't allow you to release all of your players due to the cost. Try and sell them as best you can.

I'll retain the best/least worst of the U18's and release/list the rest.

As for the first team and B team, there's nothing really worth keeping.

Also, we have about 20 feeder/affiliated team connections, so I could always farm the dross out there if no takers.

I'll let you know how this total clearout goes. Knowing my luck, I'll scrape together a new first team on a pittance then we'll get bought by a tycoon and I'll get booted out

I think you'll find you're entering a nightmare world where everyone hates you. It's hard enough getting rid of ONE player.

Still, good luck.

I did exactly this with an underperforming Belfast University side. As they had all performed so badly, the fans were happy to see all but 2 of the 23 man squad leave.

I'd try to sell players as best you can. If you can get a fee then good, if you can't then just be happy they're off your wage bill. Offer to clubs with an 'arrange friendly' clause if you want to be able to make some money back.

With the players you want to re-sign have you tried having a private chat where you ask them to lower their wage demands?

It has worked many times with my Vauxhall Motors team..