Captain Noble’s stunner secures West Ham safety
WHEN David Moyes was brought in by the West Ham board before Christmas, he was tasked with one job — keep the club in the Premier League.
Say what you want about the man and his methods, but that box has now been ticked. A third away win of the season, albeit against a flip flop-wearing Leicester who showed no interest in playing for Claude Puel whatsoever, took West Ham to safety.
Southampton can no longer catch them, or Swansea. Job done.
A Joao Mario goal got West Ham going in the first half, but it was what their captain Mark Noble did in the 64th minute that dropped jaws.
A Mario cross was headed out by Aleksandar Dragovic and it fell to Noble, waiting 25 yards from his target. All of a sudden, bang. Back of the net. Pick that one out, Ben Hamer.
Pedro Obiang won goal of the season at West Ham’s awards ceremony last week after scoring against Tottenham.
That was a sublime strike, and so was this. ‘If anyone was going to score a goal that would put the game out of sight, it deserved to be Mark Noble,’ Moyes said. ‘What he does for the club, what he epitomises... he is the captain, he has to lead the team, he has been there just about every week.’
So this was a day of good news for Moyes but not for Puel, whose own fans turned on him and let the Leicester board know exactly what they think.
They sang about him getting sacked in the morning and told him ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ after a double substitution on the hour mark.
There were ironic cheers in the 86th minute when they managed their first shot on target. Puel got the dreaded vote of confidence from Leicester’s owners this week, which is modern football’s equivalent of the mafia dishing out a kiss of death. They gave Claudio Ranieri one too, and we all know how that ended.
‘There is disappointment,’ Puel said. ‘We saw the difference between a team playing comfortably and another playing for their position in the table. It was not enough. It is a tough situation.’
After full-time there was an awkward ‘lap of appreciation’ from Leicester’s players at the King Power Stadium. Only a handful of supporters stayed to applaud.
They were beaten 5-0 by Crystal Palace last week and looked lost going forward in the first half.
Within 20 minutes there were jeers from fans who had not paid good money to watch their team aimlessly pass it around at the back.
If ever there was a good time for West Ham to be playing at the King Power, this was it, and the Londonders made sure to make this chance count.