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EVEN the likes of Maxwel Cornet and Jean Clair Todibo made it into the number allocation for West Ham’s preliminary squad announcement this afternoon: With ten players leaving this year there’s a significant shift around in shirt numbers and the surprise for me was to see Edson Alvarez allocated the number four shirt: Perhaps fuelling the suggestion of a reconciliation in view of Freddie Potts departure? West Ham’s only senior defensive midfielder might yet have a part to play under Nuno, if that is the case. Of course, it could simply be a short -term solution pending the arrival of reinforcements and until the final match day squad is confirmed at the end of September, don’t count any chickens or get any shirts printed. However there is one glaring omission from West Ham’s squad list: In view of the fact that the Hammers seem unable to offload him even for a miserly €4 million fee, it seems pretty final that Niclas Fullkrug doesn’t even have a shirt allocated to him with which to start the season. No way back for Fullkrug, the only senior West Ham player without a shirt for next season There really is no way back, then , it seems, for the Hammers out of favour German, who’d been pictured so many times by the Hammers media department in ore-season training that you’d wonder if they knew something we didn’t! Tellingly, other players have ‘moved’ – apart from Alvarez, Mohamadou Kanté becomes number 17 – but Taty doesn’t get the number nine shirt. Waiting for a new ‘main man’ striker, perhaps?