Mark Noble thanked West Ham United’s loyal supporters for braving snow and sub-zero temperatures to attend Saturday’s 4-1 Premier League defeat at Swansea City.
The captain issued an apology to the Claret and Blue Army after the Hammers were heavily beaten at the Liberty Stadium, where the Swans scored twice in each half to render Michail Antonio’s late strike a mere consolation.
With hundreds of supporters travelling through challenging conditions to reach South Wales in time for kick-off, Noble admitted the team’s performance simply had not been good enough.
That’s West Ham fans for you; they’re always going to be here in numbers cheering and they didn’t deserve what happened
Mark Noble
“Nothing seemed to go right and it was one of those games where if something could have gone wrong went wrong,” said the skipper. “It’s down to us now to pick ourselves up.
“We’ve spoken in the dressing room and we need to put this behind us as there is no point dwelling on it. It was a bad result and a bad performance, but we’ve got nine more games and we need to pick points up.
“I can’t believe how many fans turned up, to be honest. We drove through the snow on Friday and it took us just under seven hours to get here on a coach, but it was a poor performance from us.
“They know we appreciate them coming here, especially me, and that’s West Ham fans for you; they’re always going to be here in numbers cheering and they didn’t deserve what happened.”
Noble dismissed the suggestion that a second straight 4-1 defeat, following a loss by the same scoreline at Liverpool, would affect their confidence and performances going forward.
“I wouldn’t say it’s damaging because this is the Premier League and these results can happen. We didn’t play well, it’s as simple as that.
“We need to get back to basics. We’ve got three home games coming up which are key to our season, I think, so we need to get some wins there.
“This leaves us in the same boat as everyone else, really. We’re all fighting to get out of that bottom three and I think it’s going to go down to the wire. We’ve just got to win games."