Is he our Noble steed?

We love a bit of romance at West Ham. Players who come through our youth ranks, show some loyalty and go on to be successful footballers are all held in the highest regard amongst fans.

The likes of Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Glen Johnson are prime examples of those players, but it’s been a very long time since we had a an academy graduate stay at West Ham and be successful without being sold on to a bigger club or for an obscene profit.

Mark Noble, though, is a player who is quickly becoming a West Ham ‘legend’ in his own right at Upton Park. He’s made over 250 appearances in all competitions and has scored 30 goals, most of which have been from the penalty spot.

However, over the past 12 months I have come across a mixed bag of opinions about the East End born midfielder. Some believe he’s still average and doesn’t add much to the side, while others believe he is the most important fixture in our midfield.

Many argue that, because he’s a die-hard West Ham fan like the rest of us, he deserves the respect he gets and converts his passion for the club in to top-quality performances.

A Twitter poll I did earlier confirmed exactly what I thought. He’s not only a fans’ favourite, but he is becoming more and more recognised for the work that he does for the team each week, most of which goes unnoticed by neutral supporters and the press. A few of the comments read:

And they’re are all right if you take a look back at his statistics from last season.

Firstly, you rely on your midfielders to create chances for the forwards. They are the proverbial engine room. They’re meant to make things work. And make things work is exactly what Noble did last season.

As you can see from the table above, Noble made 38 key passes in the Premier League last season, second to Matt Jarvis (46).

That alone shows you that if he’s give the opportunity to roam the midfield and play his own game, he can make things happen more than any other central midfielder at the club. It’s arguably is best characteristic as a midfielder, but it still goes unnoticed by many.

Further more, his passing has greatly improved over the year, and last year we saw his ability to distribute the ball effectively at its very best. As you can see from the table below, Noble was clearly the best passer of the ball in West Ham’s midfield last season. By an absolute mile, as well.

So his statistics alone prove that he’s an instrumental part of Sam Allardyce’s midfield. It’s arguably the strongest aspect of the team at the moment.

Last year Noble played 28 Premier League matches and achieved a 35.71% win percentage, while the Hammers could only managed to win 20% of the ten games that he missed, indicating that we certainly miss his contribution when he’s either out injured or suspended.

His tackling is strong part of Noble’s game. Last season he was the second best tackler in the West Ham side – behind only Mo Diame –  with 75% of his 116 attempted tackles being successful.

Noble’s main weakness, however, is his lack of goals from midfield. As a the Hammers’ penalty taker – and a reliable one at that – he’s going to score four or five a season if we’re lucky enough to get the decisions. But what about from open play?

The simple fact is that he doesn’t shoot enough. His shooting lets him down dramatically and is preventing him from become the ‘perfect’ midfielder, as it were.

Take a look at his shooting statistics from last season:

Rock bottom amongst the midfielders last season. Eight shots in 28 matches is an average of 0.28 shots-per-game, which is terrible. What’s more, his shot accuracy was the best of all the regular first-team midfielders (63%), proving that he can shoot…

For years Noble has been a regular starter in our midfield and has performed with so much passion and belief from day one, but you just can’t help but feel he needs to take a look at Kevin Nolan‘s attacking play and implement that into his own game. Nolan’s goal scoring ability from midfield is quite something and Noble can learn a lot from that, improving his game ten fold.

If we only we could merge Noble and Nolan in to one player, eh?

What do you think? Is Noble as important as the stats suggest? Or was he just the best of an average bunch last season? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

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