The reason they keep banging on about being "the most affected club by covid" is because (without player sales) they are staring down the barrel at a £40-45m loss.
You might think that's fanciful, but look at what you mentioned.
Their operating loss (if you exclude player sales) was £24.9m last season. Factor in wage increases, Bonuses paid out for competition "wins", loan fee's, £10-12m of spending on transfers, significantly lower season ticket uptake, over-reliance upon footfall for attendance at games than season ticket sales, lack of business interruption insurance and then their dismal performance in European competition then their revenue falls off a cliff and their expenditure explodes.
Then there's the other factor; The accounts show the cash is gone and the credit lines are being opened with commercial banks. They're debt loading, at an awful time to do so, which means n the very near future they will have to either get a mass injection of money (not happening due to being uncompetitive) or selling players.
But how do you sell that set of players for maximum value? They've been on a highly publicised piss-up which isn't exactly going to increase their value, the ones they definitely want to sell are isolating for 10 days because of CoVid, they're in a slump, several want out and their contracts are running into the 18 month territory which depreciates the value significantly.
They have run themselves into a real, real bind here and it is delightful.