Thursday, February 26, 2015

Noble Hammers at Hodgson's Door


Just read that Mark Noble has been offered a new five and a half year contract extension meaning he will stay at the club until he is 33 years old. When reading that I couldn’t help but think “this lad has never had an England call up...”

A young lad, 27, at the peak of his ability, captain of a top Premier League club and he has been overlooked at recent times by players such as Fabian Delph and...Jack Colback? This is a stunning piece of evidence that surely must be mentioned all the time but alas he is left to just plod through putting in solid performances against some of the best teams in England.

Now I may not be the best person to do a review of the lad (not seeing him consistently and all) but I’m gonna give it my best shot. I’ll start by making a little comparison that I thought of a few years ago before West Ham got relegated...Scotty Parker. This lad for me is just like Scott Parker with the tackles he puts in, the work rate he puts in the fact that they both have terrible hair (we all remember Scott Parker’s “comb over” faze during and Noble’s got a hairline like Alan Shearer).

One difference for me between Parker and Noble is that Noble has a better outball than Parker. This outball definitely serves him well especially with big lads like Carroll, Sakho or The Big Dog Carlton Cole up front. Also has the ability to play a ball over the top for lads like Downing to pace onto. He gets freedom to ping these passes about when he’s in the middle with Song so why wouldn’t he be able to do it with Henderson for England? Statistically he play’s 1.5 key passes every game...not bad in my book.

I’ve mentioned earlier about his tackling which is I’m guessing one of the reasons Big Sam likes using him so much. Tough tackler knows when to tackle, when to foul, when to hold off. Good brain on him as well as good feet. The lads got great aggression and strength considering he’s only about 4 foot.

Sadly because he is quite short he is sometimes lost a little when challenging in the air. But the opposing player needs to know that as soon as that ball hits the ground he’s gonna have a midget cockney challenging for the second ball. Again top workrate.
~ Side note: I’m 6ft5. Anyone under 6ft1 to me is a short arse ~

To be fair that is the only criticism I could find. I’m sure people who watch him week-in-week-out can come up with more than he’s a big short and is receding.

My last point is that England have never lost a penalty shootout. Mark Noble is West Hams answer to Matt Le Tissier (might be an exaggeration). This lad has a skill of delivering a good ball in at a set piece, can place a penalty in any corner of the goal and I heard once took a throw in...Beckham eat your heart out.

A lot of this may have sounded sarcastic but I genuinely do like Mark Noble, think he deserves a call up for everything he’s done for West Ham this season. Normally players get called up for doing well for a few weeks in a row, why not bring in the players who do it every week?

I actually would like to see Carroll back in the England set up. He might not have the best scoring record for them but he’d cause havoc for defenses and take some attention off of lads like Sturridge or Rooney….or dare I say Kane (West Ham fans won’t like that one)

Anyways I’ve had my say. Would you guys have him in your squad? If not then who?
Hope you enjoyed this.

Cheers for reading.

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