West Ham skipper Mark Noble has used his Matchday programme column for a rallying cry to supporters for tonight’s game

Noble writes in the programme “We’ve spoken about those three games, and we have worked hard to put things right on the training pitch, our season starts again tonight, really. If I am being honest, all that matters to us at the minute is winning football games. I’ve said it many times before and I’m not going to stop saying it!

“It doesn’t matter if we play like Barcelona or Real Madrid, because if we lose then how we played is not important when you consider the position we find ourselves in. If we were safely in mid-table, in top form or coming to the end of the season, then maybe we could say ‘performances are just as important as results’, but at present our results are the be-all and end-all.”

“It’s going to be great to lead the team out in front of more than 50,000 of our fantastic fans tonight”

“Before I talk more about tonight’s game, I want to say thank you to our amazing away fans, who have travelled more than a thousand miles already this season, spent a lot of money and obviously not watched us play great football.

“[I’d say to our fans] ‘Please give it your all and get behind the lads tonight. We want to make this place a fortress this season and you can play a massive part in helping us do just that’.”