West Ham United kick off their Premier League campaign on Sunday against Liverpool at Anfield and Mark Noble will captain the side.
Noble will be the team captain during the 2018-19 season and Manuel Pellegrini has made it clear that the midfielder will also be the captain on the pitch whenever he is selected to play in the first eleven.
Noble will be entering his 15th season with the Hammers and the local lad has revealed how he has to shoulder multiple responsibilities for the team both on as well as off the field.
The 31-year-old has revealed that he wants to enjoy more during this campaign as last time around he was busy solving other’s problems.
“I just want to enjoy it more than I have done the last couple of seasons because I have been putting out fires left, right and centre,” Noble said.
And the midfielder has revealed that one major job he had during the 2017-18 season, was to keep Marko Arnautovic focused after the forward had a bad start to the season.
Arnautovic joined West Ham in the summer of 2017 from Stoke City for an initial fee of £20 million and the Austrian had a pretty average start to the season.
Mark Noble has revealed in a recent interview how he would call up the forward in order to keep him motivated during the bad times which eventually helped Arnautovic get back his form.
Noble said: “When we signed Marko [Arnautovic] last year the first six months were tough for him and after that I took it upon myself to ring him. Not all the time but I kept ringing him and telling him, ‘Don’t worry mate, it’s going to come good for you.’ And I am not saying it’s because of me [that it did].
“But it’s important – because the fans wrote him off, and then he kept us up with the goals he scored.
“Marko has got a strong character but everyone, at some point, gets damaged and gets hurt. It’s about the team and about being together and about doing the best.”
Arnautovic’s performances saw a significant rise down the second half of the season – so much so that the forward was linked with a move to Manchester United at the one point during the summer transfer window.
Read: Manuel Pellegrini drops a huge hint about the future of ‘this’ Hammers’ record holder.
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