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Stuart Pearce praised Mark Noble after the club captain led his team to success in Wednesday evening's Carabao Cup tie against holders Manchester City.

The veteran midfielder, playing his final season as a pro at the club was one of five successful spot kick takers as the Hammers saw off City, who have won the competition in five of the last six seasons, at the London Olympic Stadium.

And Pearce believes the skipper has set a shining example for some of the club's younger players to follow.




"He has been a wonderful captain for this club," said Pearce, speaking during the post-match press conference.

"He is a great role model and having worked with him at Under 21 level [for England] I have a great connection. He inspires and has not had a load of games this season, but he came in tonight and was incredible."

Meanwhile Pearce also praised the determination of his squad as, despite missing several key figures such as Declan Rice, Lukasz Fabianski and Michail Antonio, they still managed to keep City's expensively-assembled squad at bay.

"You win some you lose some, but we deserved to get over the line because of our resilience and the honesty," he insisted. "There is a level of honesty here and hard work drives us on, but we will not get ahead of ourselves and keep working.

"This is an outstanding Manchester City side who showed respect to our football club. Our resilience and defensive work when they had the the majority of possession was good and what we did with the ball, trying to play against their high press, was pleasing.

"It was a really good night for this football club with 60,000 in the stadium. The players deserve all the credit - and a bit [must go] to our manager as well, who drives this club forward on a daily basis.

"Anyone with 1,000 matches under his belt deserves to be taken seriously."

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