Noble: This is top Irons squad I have ever seen

MARK NOBLE believes the current West Ham squad is the strongest he’s ever seen.

The club captain (below) – now in his 15th year with the Hammers – says the mix in the dressing-room, with the quality now on the bench, add up to make it the best he has been involved with.

Noble, 32, was showing no signs of slowing down at

Aston Villa, haring around the pitch in last Monday’s goalless draw.

“I think this is our best crop of players. You look around the changing-room, we’ve got a fantastic team,” he said.

“If you look at it, we’ve got Aaron Cresswell who wasn’t even in the squad against Villa. Jack Wilshere, who was on the bench, didn’t come on.

“We have top, top players – England internationals. That shows the depth of quality.

“And, to be fair to those boys, they are grafting every day in training. They are adding to the team spirit we have and pushing the likes of me, Manu (Lanzini) and Declan (Rice) to be better players. That’s what you need.

“It’s a fantastic group of players who have a really good mentality to winning games – and I think it showed at Villa Park. We went at the game from the start.

“And Villa have spent a lot of money and have some really good players.

“But we moved the ball really well. Even when we went down to 10 men, we still played the same way, we tried to win – that’s what the manager asked of us.

“Last year, we wouldn’t have got that result. We lost too many points away from home against the so-called ‘lesser’ teams.

“We didn’t get a point from the first four games and we could still have pushed into those Europa League spots.”

Twelve months ago, the Hammers set alarm bells ringing at Old Trafford when they chalked up a 3-1 victory over Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United, in what was the beginning of the end for the Special One.

But Noble is too long in the tooth to suggest that the Red Devils are anything but a force to be reckoned with.

He said: “We know it’s going to be a tough one, but we are four or five unbeaten now and we have been really good at home. We did well against them last year.

“Manchester United are a fantastic club, but, obviously, over the past couple of years it hasn’t been the

Manchester United we know.

“Still, they can turn up on any given day, the talent they have, the strike-force. I mean, they’ve just spent £80m on a central defender.

“But we have good players. We are decent – at home, especially, we’ve been really good. We are hoping to carry that on.

“We had a good win against Norwich and a decent point against Villa – and now we want to stay unbeaten.”