GWT: EPL week 29

[Corto]

This was when Noble just started playing for the first team. Not sure how it's so hard to believe because as you said people thought Reo Coker would be a star.

I seriously don't remember anyone ever claiming Mark freaking Noble was going to be better than Cesc.
And I've been on various West Ham forums for a over a decade.

 

[Stray Wasp]

I'll say this about Mark Noble, at his peak, he was an underrated player that suffered playing on some god awful West Ham teams. I don't quite remember just what the supporters expected him to become (only started supporting the club right around the time Noble broke through in 05/06, but more intently later than that), but I know a lot of us thought he had earned an England cap, and I still think that. Unluckily for him, England already had a few CMs they didn't know what to do with and he played for West Ham. At this point, his legs are almost completely gone and he's running on fumes, but god damn if I don't love the way he recklessly throws himself into every tackle. And yes, West Ham has seen it's share of young players crash and burn. I thought Nigel Reo-Coker was the next big thing...

Noble (like James Tomkins around the same time) was hyped a lot early on. I agree he should have been capped, because for my money one of England's problems has been their tendency to try and stack their midfield with players who want to run the show rather than finding a balance between stars and supporting players. Noble, I suspect, would have been happy to have fulfilled the latter role and comfortable in it. At his best he has the virtue of keeping play simple in order to ensure possession keeps circulating. There's much to be said for that style, particularly at international level.