Noble tells how ‘home truths’ fuelled revival
Mark Noble revealed that some “home truths” were delivered to the West Ham United players during a team meeting last week.
Following the impressive win over Everton to collect their first points of the campaign, the West Ham captain said he had called the meeting after the 1-0 home defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“The table looks a lot better after that one result, one three points. It looks a lot better than it did before,” Noble said. “We spoke openly after the Wolves game with each other, we said some home truths. Me and Marko [Arnautovic] were in the thick of that in the changing room. Sometimes that’s what you need.
“We’ve had two fantastic weeks of hard training but today was about the result, not the performance. And when you get a performance like that as well, it gives you a lot of belief.”
The result lifted West Ham not just off the bottom of the Premier League table but out of the relegation places, although Manuel Pellegrini, the manager, had to explain a second-half incident after which there were claims on Sky Sports that substitute Lucas Perez had refused to warm up.
Perez was seen in animated conversation with Xavi Valero, the West Ham coach, after Michail Antonio replaced the injured Arnautovic. “Maybe it looks and you can think he refuses [to warm up],” Pellegrini said. “When Arnautovic was injured, I called him because he was making his warm-up, but when he was back sitting on the bench and Antonio was working I called him because he was ready.
“I don’t have any problem with the player. We didn’t want to delay too much the change, so Antonio went on immediately and Lucas could not go on.”
Asked whether he had spoken to Perez, Pellegrini added: “No, we haven’t spoken about it. I don’t have to explain a decision, especially during a game. We have a week to speak after that. Antonio was ready.”
The result lifts the pressure on Pellegrini, who said: “I’ve had a lot of communication with the owners. Of course they were not happy, but they never told me anything about having any doubts about what we are doing.”
Marco Silva, the Everton manager, admitted his team did not play well enough to win a game which ended in their first defeat of the season. “We made mistakes and at
‘I don’t have to explain a decision during a game. Antonio was ready’
that moment we didn’t react well,” Silva said.
“It’s a tough result for us. A club like us to lose 3-1 at home is always tough. We have to react – there’s nothing more to it. We have to react to the mistakes we made.”
Mason Holgate claimed the result was even more disappointing because of the opponents.
“Losing 3-1 at home is never good enough for us, especially, with respect, against a team who didn’t have any points yet,” the Everton defender said.