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Just been watching highlights from our previous games this season, i must say to me it feels like Mark Noble is a weak link in our team, he has giving away possession many times which either lead to a goal or an goal scoring opportunity for the other team. I would have Song playing as our defensive mid ( when fit ) or Kouyate.
To be honest i think Bilic made a mistake by making him Captain because that makes it difficult for Bilic not to have him as a starter because he is the team Captain.
I love the guy, he is a great player to have and i know he is West Ham through and through but i would of liked to see Reid as our Captain. He is a guaranteed starter and i think he can be great commanding from the back.
Before anyone starts with the 'what do you know about football etc', this is just my opinion, we all support the mighty Hammers and are entitled to our own opinion.
*given away...
*given away..
*given away
*given away possession...
Why are we once again
Why are we once again discussing this only 2 weeks after the last one died? But as we are. Why is kouyate not getting critiqued for drifting around leaving noble with his space to cover as well? Or why not we discuss payets pass (a very similar one to nobles against Norwich) that resulted in sunder lands second goal? Are we not prepared to critique them either? Or do they just not fit into the "lets drop noble" agenda? The midfield is at fault but it's as a unit and not individual! Kouyate had stopped chasing back, payets work ethic has dropped and neither Moses or Lanzini protect our full backs properly! We don't really have a defensive side to any of our midfielders and noble is just covering holes, big holes. With our 2 wingers and Payet in we need 2 defensive midfielders to protect our back line, to make it balanced. Neither kouyate or noble are out and out defencive midfield closest is obiang and song so do we drop or move kouyate? Def mid is a disciplined position and kouyate doesn't have the holding discipline, noble has a bit more.
Noble has made a few bad
Noble has made a few bad mistakes over the last few weeks, but when you do as much work as him maybe that's not surprising. I'm not a great stats man, but have heard that his pass percentage is higher than most, and he is the most fouled mid-fielder in the Premier league. He needs to work on stuff in training, but I'm sure he and Slav are aware of that more than we are. As to Song, do you remember how awful his passing was second half of last season? He was worse than Noble... so it depends which Song we get when he is fully fit.
Noble admitted in the post
Noble admitted in the post match interview against 'Poo or Citeh - can't remember which, the advice he got from Bobby Zamora which was to get the ball and pass to players who are better than you. In a way he does himself a discredit - okay so immediately looking for the pass can lead to the sloppy sideways balls which people are picking up on but at the same time with Songs often poor distribution last season, how many times did he also hold onto the ball for too long or try and drift through the game on his own self belief? Nobes is a grafter and will always give 100% so I can forgive him the odd mistake - for he is the beating heart of the West Ham side... its like having the equivalent of the 12th man but playing on the pitch
Bad advice from Zamora.
Bad advice from Zamora.
He's taking it too literally.
How else could you account for the 9,875 passes to the East Stand every home game?
On the plus side it means he's limited to between 3000-5000 in the awy matches!!!