Whatever you may feel of Mark Noble on the pitch you can’t fault his leadership off it and the way he looks after the players – notably the younger ones at the club.
He’s a proper bloke with far from his own interests at heart as he has demonstrated in his latest London Evening Standard column @https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/mark-noble-column-sad-to-see-professional-roy-keane-lay-into-declan-rice-a4293951.html where he makes his oponions on Roy Keane’s latest attack on Declan Rice very clear.
It’s a refreshing pre-match change from the “we are going to show what we are made of” interviews so loved by club media departments and Mark is full value when he speaks his mind.
Most reasonable people have made their minds up on the nature of Keane’s attacks on the 20 year old and his reasons for doing so following the defensive midfielders’s decision to play for England rather than Ireland.
It also received a “get over it” message from co chairman David Gold who showed himself to be extremely fed up with the former Manchester United midfielder.
Now Nobes has joined him declaring: “I watched England’s s two recent games and particularly the 4-0 win against Kosovo. I thought Declan Rice played really well, but the criticism of him by Roy Keane did surprise me.
First of all, I found it a little strange that Roy, one of the best players I’ve ever seen and a former Republic of Ireland captain, was one of the pundits on an England game — but maybe he was on because he can be controversial and speaks his mind.
Roy worked with Declan when he was available for the Republic, so perhaps that had something to do with it.
What it does — and I speak from some experience — is chip away at your ‘innocence’, for want of a better word. It can make you withdrawn, wary and mistrusting of people.
It’s a real shame when it comes from a former fellow professional and I just wonder how Roy would have reacted if someone had said something similar about him when he was playing.
Declan has a fantastic career ahead of him. He will have more criticism as he progresses — everyone does — but he will cope with it, no problem.”