Manuel Pellegrini has made it clear he doesn’t know how many games Mark Noble will play this season but explained he will be captain whenever he does.As the prepared for the tough opening fixture at Liverpool the manager said: “Mark Noble is the captain of the team and, although I don’t know how many times he will be selected, every time he is selected he will be captain!”
Noble, however, looks booked for a midfield role at Anfield – a match of which the manager said: “I know Liverpool are in a very good moment with a lot of trust in what they are doing but, in football, results can depend on two or three points in a game.
“We have a lot of trust in ourselves and we will go there and see what we can do.”
“We don’t have any special plans just for him (Mo Salah) because it would be easier if Liverpool were just Mo Salah, but they aren’t. They have Firmino, Mane, Shaqiri…but Salah is a great player and we all saw what he did last season.”
I think a lot of other clubs would love to have a player with the same passion for his club as Mark Noble. Bit of a throwback to our players of the past. A model professional with claret & blue in his veins. Good enough for me.
I like what Pellegrini says, I have often been critical of Noble’s reading of the game but its not for that reason, Noble is a fighter, he actually responds well when challenged and to hear his manager say that he doesn’t know how often he will play should bring out the best Noble there is, it says to the whole team, you stay in the team on merit there is no guaranteed names on the sheet unlike the holiday camp we have been accused of running at points in our history where everything is too comfortable right ?