There's no mystery here - we've got a squad of players on CL wages, and we've now gone 3 years without CL income (and the increased commercials that go with the prestige of that competition). Next year will be year 4.
I think we had enough in the bank to cover the shortfall for the first couple of years, but we're now into loss-making territory so some harsh decisions are going to need to be made.
On the plus side, some harsh decisions are going to need to be made.