Blame Turk

Totally totally concur moore. In the modern day game pace is ALL IMPORTANT. If not of foot then of mind. He has neither. This renders him almost obsolete in what is required at the top level for todays game. 40 years ago when football was played in varying mudbaths around the place his sliding tackle/kick anything that moves inabilities might have got some credence. Not any more. Its box to box (for 90 mins and beyond) or eye of a needle pass in a split second to open up very tight and well organised defences that are the order of the day. Those that cant do either are playing their football at the very lower levels of the game (which sadly is where Marky should be)!!! If you look at him anytime after about the hour mark in the game he is really toiling physical wise by then. Hes usually resorting to lunging,scything tackles (usually resulting in fouls being awarded to the opposition thus losing us what little possesion we have continually)!!! THERES A REASON why West Ham continually fail to see home games they have maybe taken the lead in earlier in the game. THERES A REASON we rarely (if ever) finish a game the stronger team)!! its not all Nobles fault of course......but when your central midfielder is out on his feet long long before the final whistle it certainly doesnt help!!! Worryingly hes been given a new 5 year deal which will see him lumber into what will undoubtedly (ala Nolan) become an even slower phase of his career!! Unless somebody new comes to the helm and has the bottle to say " eh thanks for the efforts Mark but your not exactly what I want in a player" then I fear for our midfield (continually stifling Poyet etc). Even IF a new manager comes in then I wonder what that means. IM ASSUMING that IF Allardyce is not offerede a new contract then it must have been G and S who autherised/instigated the new deal for Noble. could you then have a scenario where a new manager comes in and they are told "you have to play him as hes our captain/vice captain and we have recently given him a new deal" thus forcing a new manger to play a playe rhe doesnt want?! God forbid that scenario!! you could never have faulted his "efforts" in our colours. Loyal (but then again a lot of people would be loyal if somebody was waving a huge paycheck at us and nobody else was prepared to match it far less improve it) yes. Commited yes. But "fit for purpose"?! a testimonial to have "rewarded" him for his efforts and move on (for both parties) would have been optimum for me.

The biggest issue i have with the whole backwards and sideways passing comment is that its statistically proven its not the case and yet the same thing he gets labelled with. What the post fails to mention is how can he play the killer passes everybody wants without the movement? What I constantly see is Noble recieving the ball more then any other player because hes one of the few in our team not afraid to have the ball then he looks up and waits for someone to move and in the end the movement never comes so hes resorted to play the short simple passes more. At the beginning of the season he was one of our best players and was playing some superb passes. Ye he has weaknesses but his strengths in my opinion outweigh his weaknesses when the team play attacking football. It's silly that other teams and other pundits rate Noble more then half our fan base.

I like Nobes and think he plays better when Nolan is not playing.