(Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
Christmas and New Year celebrations will have to wait for the Irons as they look for another seriously strong performance at Palace on Thursday afternoon followed by two seriously important games.
It’s situation normal with the squad assembled on the Rush Green training pitch whilst most of the the rest of us scramble around with excited kids tomorrow morning.
Mark Noble has been here a million times (well not quite) before and important as the festive time may be domestically he is focused on another big away performance.
After battling 1-0 wins at Stamford Bridge and St Mary’s the tally is now up to 12 points from three wins and three draws on the road and the skipper is looking for more of the same at Selhurst Park.
There’s also that first double defeat of the season to be avoided but with Seb Haller and Michail Antonio looking different class as a partnership we have more than hope – maybe even confidence – as we approach the game.
The captain is determined that we see a result which can set us on his way and points to a couple of reasons why.
Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/december/23-december/noble-we-want-another-away-performance-southampton-and he said: “It was so important for us to win at Southampton last week. The league’s so tight with so many games to play that we still have the same goal, to end up where we want to end up and if we can put a little run of results together over the Christmas period that would really help.
“We’ve got a bit of an advantage because we didn’t have a game at the weekend, but we’ve been training hard and we know what Palace are – they’re a fantastic team and Roy [Hodgson] has set them up so well.
“At least we’re not travelling across the country for our game at Christmas time. We’re only local and we’re just hoping for another away performance like we’ve put in recently.
“Not having a game this weekend hasn’t changed our schedule, because there’s obviously this game on Boxing Day. We’ll be in Christmas Day, then we play on the 28th, spend New Year’s Eve in the hotel and play on New Year’s Day. So for us it doesn’t really change much.”