Mark Noble looked as good as ever at the heart of midfield against Chelsea and may have had one or two wondering if maybe he was hanging up his boots a little too soon.

Personally I was surprised to see him substituted such was the level of his performance and he, along with the rest of the lads, did a fine job.

He put the end down to naivety as Daws was sent off but was incredibly proud with a team which showed six changes but played with tremendous spirit whilst admitting how much he enjoyed it despite being gutted at the end.

He has left nobody down on his appearances this season and you start to wonder whether he may have a change of mind over his plan to bring the curtain down on his career. He looked to have plenty left in the tank

Probably not eh?

That’s now the Nobes way but after the game he was full of praise for the performance telling www.whufg.com: “I’m so proud of the boys today. We made five or six changes and were playing with one recognised centre-half. I thought the boys who came in were great and probably deserved a little bit more. 

I know that Chelsea are always going to have the ball at home and create chances, but the way we defended and stuck by it… it was just a bit of a shame at the end.

You have to stick to your task. It’s like with teams coming to us – they know we’re going to put them under pressure at times and you have to be resilient.

For Chelsea to be able to bring on Romelu Lukaku and Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic, who scored the goal… 

I’m just gutted because I thought the boys who came in and the squad deserved more, but that’s football for you. We’ve got to pick ourselves up. 

We’ve got a fantastic occasion on Thursday which we’re really looking forward to.

I’m just really proud of them because we’ve put in a great shift and I’m just gutted at the end. I thought a 0-0 draw would’ve been perfect for us.

I really enjoyed [starting at Stamford Bridge]. I felt really good. 

It does help when you’ve got a group of players that work hard and press and do the hard things right, it helps me out a lot, but I really enjoyed it. I’m just gutted for the players at the end.
 

I think the whole Club, the West Ham world, everyone involved in the Club is going to look forward to Thursday’s game. 

We’ve got three or four days now to be able to plan, have a look at Eintracht Frankfurt and see where we go from there. I’m sure it’ll be a fantastic occasion.