The return of Mark Noble truly was something to behold yesterday!
Ok we were effectively playing a Championship side but four goals and a new Premier league record in one guy scoring them is something of which to be very chuffed indeed.
As was the captain’s performance, pushed forward to help spark things up front whilst Soucek and Bowen provided a safety net which ensured he didn’t have to chase back leaving holes in midfield.
It meany we didn’t miss either of the “recognised” playmakers in Lanzini or Anderson and he was a lot more effective than Yarmolenko.
Beyond that we also possibly benefited from his leadership which even his harshest critic would surely accept is his Hammers trademark.
Given all that it comes as no surprise to hear him effusively applauding the squad’s performance at Carrow Road admittedly again aginst what is clearly a far less than average Premier league side.
But we completed a great double and now have an outstanding chance to survive.
And afterwards at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2020/july/12-july/mark-noble-we-all-knew-how-important-it-was-win-norwich he said: “I’m really proud of the boys.
“The players knew how important a game this was for us and as much as we knew the situation Norwich are in, they’ve still got some very good players and it’s a tough place to play.
“We know it’s different without the crowd, but we had to come here and do our jobs and I thought the boys were brilliant.
“I know Mikey’s got the four goals, but I think everyone was on it at their jobs and if you do that, you’ll win more games than you lose.
“We haven’t played like that enough this season, simple as that, and that’s why we’re in the position we’re in. I’m hoping that with today and a couple more results we can push on.”
Image courtesy of www.whufc.com
Noble reserved special congratulations for Antonio, whose four-goal haul saw him become the first Hammer since David Cross to net a quadruple strike since 1981, and take his post-restart tally to six.
The skipper added:“He’s been a real saving grace for us the last month or so. He’s got the goals for us and I just said to him in there he owes me a drink because I set him up twice today!
“He’s been great for us and he deserves his goals because he works so hard for the team.
“He’s such a handful, no centre-half would want to play against him full stop. We know that sometimes he’s better running channels and getting the ball in behind, like for his third goal today, I didn’t see him but I heard his scream and I knew where he’d be.
“You can manage to play those balls in behind and it’s great for me because I know he’s going to run in behind. I’ve told him as soon as I get the ball to make sure you’re on your bike and today that worked out.”
“We’ve won 4-0 and we know we’ve got quite a buffer on the teams below us, but we want to play like that every week,” he explained.
“We’ve got a home game against Watford next week which is another tough game. They won today and you don’t want to keep looking at other people’s results. You want to keep working and hopefully we can play at home at the end of the season knowing that we’re safe.”
