West Ham hero Cottee: Noble influence being missed | OneFootball

West Ham hero Tony Cottee feels the retirement of former captain Mark Noble is being felt.

Declan Rice claimed the Hammers captain's armband full-time after Noble's retirement at the end of last season and Cottee believes the club are missing Mr West Ham this term.

When asked if Noble was a big loss to the squad, Cottee told Cheeky Punter: “Absolutely massive, when I played in the 80's and 90's the captain was the captain on the pitch and didn't have to do much else. They would liaise with the manager of course but your job was on the field.

“Nowadays, you've got jobs off the field, sorting new players out making sure they are ok, community work, charity work and then go on the pitch and lead. Mark [Noble] was doing that for 20 years and he's now not there, so it was always going to have an impact on the dressing room.

“But they have got a wonderful replacement in Declan [Rice], we all know how good he is. Maybe he is feeling more responsibility on his shoulders, but he did it last year. By his high standards, he's had a relatively slow start to the season, I'm sure he'd be the first to admit it. You can't explain it sometimes as a player though, you can have a brilliant pre-season but then be awful for the first few games in the league.

“It works the other way as well, you just don't know, sometimes it takes a while to get going. There is no doubting the quality of Declan as captain but, yes of course we have missed Mark Noble."