West Ham captain Mark Noble has praised this pre-season under Manuel Pellegrini but has slammed last summer’s preparations under Slaven Bilic.
Writing in his new London Standard Friday column Noble said “The pre-season organisation this summer has been different class, so much better than last year. I’m not going to blame anyone individually, that’s not my style, but the pre-season last year was nowhere good enough for a Premier League club. The games we played, where we were based, were sub-standard. We looked around at other clubs playing top opposition, yet we were playing fourth-league teams from Germany. In one game the goals didn’t even line up correctly.
You couldn’t help thinking, this is no way to prepare for a Premier League season, and I think it showed.
This year, though, everything has been fantastic: hotels, training grounds, facilities. Everything has been done properly and for the past few seasons, since I was made captain, I have consistently said that the little things matter.
It’s hard for me because being a one-club player, I’ve not witnessed how different people work, but it is the small things that matter.
If you’re going to spend £30m plus on players, then details do matter in how they’re treated, where they’re staying, details such as, for example, whether there is wi-fi in the hotel so the new players can use Facetime — or something similar — to speak to their families back in their home country.
To the fans, that doesn’t sound important but believe me, the players appreciate those little things. “