West Ham captain Mark Noble was left overjoyed following the Hammers 1-0 win against Tottenham in the Premier League on Saturday.
Michail Antonio scored the only goal of the game and the East London club made history in the process as they became the first side to ever record an victory over the Lilywhites at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The victory will be especially important to Noble who has been a one-club man, having started off with the Hammers back in 2004 and remaining with the first-team to date.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side took advantage of some slack play from Spurs who headed into the game also concerned about their upcoming Champions League semi-final clash against Ajax Amsterdam.
During recent seasons, the importance of Noble to the East Londoners first-team squad has been questioned with some critics feeling that it is time for the club to start phasing out the veteran.
However, the 31-year-old showed that he still has a role to play for the club during the victory against Spurs. He looked confident with the ball during the game and his passing was superb.
The victory for the Hammers probably meant more to Noble than to any other player from the squad and even manager Pellegrini.
Noble has certainly proven that he can continue to represent the West Ham first-team on a regular basis for at least another two seasons. There is a good chance that he will retire from professional football once his time with the club eventually ends.
“The way we’ve played, we thoroughly deserved the result today. To come here is hard enough as it is, but to play the way that we did was brilliant. I thought we performed really well today and deserved our win” Noble said as quoted by the official West Ham website.
“We felt like we could hurt them in some places. I felt, in the second half, we relaxed a bit more on the ball. In the first half, we perhaps tried to score too quickly. We tried to go forward too quick but we played a bit in the second half.