- Captain proud of the way West Ham United pulled together to beat Crystal Palace
- Hammers had endured a week full of off-field distractions but won 3-0 at London Stadium
- No16 says the squad will now look forward to Saturday's trip to Middlesbrough with optimism
Mark Noble could not have been a prouder West Ham United captain after his Club pulled together in Saturday’s 3-0 Premier League win over Crystal Palace.
The London Stadium atmosphere was at its best as the Hammers ended a challenging week with an emphatic win over Sam Allardyce’s side.
The skipper, who returned to the side after illness saw him begin the Manchester City Emirates FA Cup defeat on the bench, said a half-time tactical switch from manager Slaven Bilic and three fantastic goals from Sofiane Feghouli, Andy Carroll and Manuel Lanzini helped everybody put off-field distractions out of their minds.
“It was a definitely a satisfying end to a difficult week,” he confirmed. “Obviously we had the Dimitri Payet situation, Big Sam [Allardyce] coming back and Tonks (James Tomkins), who is a friend of ours, coming back too, so there were a lot of factors in play.
“In the first half, there were a few nerves there, but once we got that first goal I thought we were the old West Ham. We went to two up-front to cause them a few more problems and it worked, so it was a really commanding performance in the end.
“I’m just happy that the situation got sorted out. A win settles nerves and puts everything on the backburner and we can look forward to Middlesbrough.”
As captain, Noble took on a leadership role at Rush Green last week, reminding his teammates of the need to make up for the absences of Payet and Africa Cup of Nations-bound Andre Ayew and Cheikhou Kouyate.
“It gives players the chance to step up, and I said all week in training to players like Manu, Sofiane and Big Andy and Michail, who was brilliant, that we’ve lost our best player and we need to step up because we need to score goals,” the No16 continued.
“I’m not taking credit for that (the goals we scored) but they did it on Saturday!”
A win settles nerves and puts everything on the backburner and we can look forward to Middlesbrough
Mark Noble
Antonio lofted a cross towards the far post, where Carroll took to the air before rocketing an unstoppable scissor kick beyond Wayne Hennessey and high into the top right-hand corner.
Noble himself had a grandstand view of the Goal of the Season contender.
“I was right behind it and in line it was fantastic!” he smiled. “Andy caught it well and funnily enough he hit the post with one on Thursday during the set plays and the media said ‘Save it for the weekend’ so credit to you guys!”
West Ham rose to 12th with victory at the weekend and can climb into the top half with a win at newly-promoted Middlesbrough on Saturday.
With Boro having not won since 17 December and not scored in their previous two Premier League matches, Noble knows victory at the Riverside Stadium is well within the Hammers’ capabilities.
“We played Manchester United and were hard done by and then Manchester City in the Cup, which were two tough games which we lost, so to bounce back and win 3-0 against a strong Palace team was a really, really, really important result for the Club,” he concluded.
“We have put a big gap between ourselves and the bottom three and we can now move forward to Boro looking upwards rather than over our shoulders.”