Mark Noble has called on his West Ham teammates to improve their end product, despite beating Newcastle United 3-0 on Saturday.
The Hammers never looked in trouble on Tyneside, and Mexican forward Javier Hernandez bagged a brace to herald his own personal return to form, but captain Noble still believes his team can do better.
Speaking to the club’s official website, he said: “I feel relieved because Saturday was one of those games where, if you lose, you’re back in the mix and going into a three-game week.
“Especially myself after having four or five weeks off with my suspension and the international break, it was always going to be tough, but I felt really good out there and I thought the team played really well.
“We were a bit sloppy with our end product. Three-nil is a great result but it should have been three-nil way before that. It should have been three-nil at half-time but we kept plugging away and we got what we deserved in the end, I think.”
OPINION
West Ham looked the best that they have in a while against Newcastle on Saturday. Particularly in the second half, they were never really troubled by the Magpies, and 3-0 was probably a fair result. The fact that Hernandez managed to bag himself a brace will be a massive encouragement to Manuel Pellegrini, especially with Marko Arnautovic and Felipe Anderson both enjoying fine runs of form. There is room for improvement in front of goal, but the time to worry is when the chances are not being created at all. There are rumours abound that Chicharito wishes to leave the club in January, but if they are able to hold on to the little Mexican, and if he is able to recapture the sort of form that made him such a formidable poacher for Manchester United, then there is no reason to suspect that the Hammers won’t begin to fire on all cylinders, and steadily climb away from the bemusing relegation battle they have threatened to drop into.