Noble: New boss and the kids boost intensity

Mark Noble has revealed that as Slaven Bilic drove from the training ground for the last time he told the squad there “were no hard feelings.”

And he added: “These days, it can be quite a ruthless game for a manager if they don’t get results. For the last five years, football has become a real business and if you don’t win, you pay the consequences.”

Noble has explained however that under new boss David Moyes the intensity has gone up straightaway and that is due in part to the arrival on the training pitch of youth players.

He told the official site: “We’ve had a lot of boys away on international duty this past week or two, but most of them were back on Thursday and now we’ve got our minds focused totally on Watford on Sunday.

The manager has shared his ideas with us about how he wants us to play, but I don’t think that’s something I should really be sharing with everybody!

We’ve had Terry Westley’s Under-23s over training with us this past fortnight to make up the numbers and, to be honest, that’s been great for us.

They’ve been flying around the training pitch, wanting to impress the new manager, which has upped the tempo in training as they are young, fit and eager to show they are ready.

It’s also great for the manager because it gives him the opportunity to see what’s coming through the ranks here at the Club.”

Noble added: “I am hoping the new manager situation can have a big impact and we can go to Vicarage Road and get a result.

We need to win games at this point and if we can get back-to-back wins, we can start to move up the table.