West Ham United captain Mark Noble was delighted to mark game No500 with victory over Watford.

Noble enjoyed seeing Michail Antonio and Tomas Soucek continue their recent scoring form to put West Ham two goals up within ten minutes, before adding an assist for Declan Rice's outstanding long-range third.

As always, the No16 demanded more from his teammates, and he admitted he was not happy with the Hammers' second-half display, which included a goal for his friend and counterpart Troy Deeney, but he told West Ham TV the overall feeling was a positive.

"I'm just gutted the fans weren't here because it would have been electric," he began. "I know they were at home watching and you can feel [their support]... I obviously got a load of text messages today for a couple of reasons.

"To be 3-0 up at half-time, in this case it made it harder for us because, with the amount of pressure we've been under, to go 3-0 up at half-time you can't help but sit back and try to protect that lead because you know what's at stake.

"We knew that three points tonight would probably make us safe so, yeah, when the final whistle went it was a massive relief!"

On his 500 game landmark, Noble added: "I care about it so much.

"It's a hard one, because unless you sit in my shoes for a day, you don't see how I care about the players, every staff member and the way the Club does.

"I'm at the age now where as long as the Club is winning, it makes me happy. I just want us to win.

"I train every day and I'm fit for 90 to 95% of the games so to win like that, having won another massive game at Norwich, after the COVID-19 lockdown and going through our wage deferrals to make sure all the staff got paid, it's just a relief for me."