Rice stays, Wilshere goes as WHU squad left looking thin

Well, at least Chelsea didn't come in with a large bid for Declan Rice before the transfer window closed. It's a big bonus to keep Declan after all those rumours and Vladimir Coufal looks to be a good signing on the evidence of the win at Leicester. While at the start of the window securing Tomas Soucek for £19m looks like good business. 

On the other hand, the board hasn't kept its promise of investing all the £18m Grady Diangana money in new players. Burnley were always unlikely to release James Tarkowski for £30m while Chelsea's Rudiger was never going to want to come, Fofana went to Leicester and Chelsea's Tomori turned down a season's loan just before the deadline.

Releasing the £100k-a-week Jack Wilshere was the right thing to do, even though it has cost a reputed £3.6 million to pay off his contract. You feel sorry for Jack with his injury record, but he just doesn't look mobile anymore and he was never going to get in team ahead of Rice, Soucek and Noble. It was a calamitous signing by Manuel Pellegrini and it wasn't like he hadn't been warned that Wilshere was injury-prone. Wilshere clearly had skill, and was a great young player at Arsenal, but his best hope now is a pay-as-you-play deal.

The other departures leave the WHU squad looking very thin. Josh Cullen has gone to Anderlecht for around £1million. He did a decent job at Charlton and looked a Championship player to me, but even so he might have been a useful squad player had he stayed. 

Reserve striker Silva has gone on loan and it looks like Anderson is going to be loaned to Porto. This summer the club has lost Zabeleta, Ngakia, Sanchez, Hugill, Ajeti, Diangana, Cullen and Wilshere and loaned out Silva and Anderson. There's certainly some dead wood there, but only two replacements have been signed.

If we take the X1 who started at Leicester, the only other squad players left are Diop, Noble, Haller, Fredericks, Yarmolenko, Lanzini, Snodgrass, Johnson and Randolph, making it a 20-man squad.The big worry is the lack of strikers. If Antonio is injured we have only Haller, who can't play on his own.

There is still time to buy players from the Football League and you'd like to think that the Hammers have a few signings lined up — though knowing the lack of an efficient recruitment department that might not be so. Moyes has bought well with Bowen, Soucek and Coufal but we need more bodies before the inevitable injury-crisis hits.