West Ham sporting director Mark Noble on the FA Youth Cup final, Jack Wilshere’s future and an unlikely Treble campaign

MARK NOBLE has his sights set on a treble that not even Manchester United can claim to have won.

For a campaign that started and continued in such a dismal way, West Ham are on course for the most unlikely of all successful endings to a season.

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David Moyes’ senior side are on track to guide the Hammers to Premier League survival after a rebound in form while also eyeing a major European final.

With AZ Alkmaar in next month’s Europa Conference League semi-finals, their first major title in 43 years is yet to come before the final could take place in Prague on 7 June.

And to top it off, the club’s Under-18s could make history by beating Arsenal in tomorrow night’s FA Youth Cup final in the Emirates.

West Ham’s academy has not reached that stage since 1999, when the likes of Joe Cole and Michael Carrick inspired a 9-0 win over Coventry City – the same year United won their famous under Sir Alex Ferguson and the Class of ’92 Treble.

And former academy product Noble, who spent 18 years at the club before becoming sporting director in January after retiring last summer, said: “It will be remembered forever. That’s what things like this do.

“It would be amazing if we won the conference if the lads with the Youth Cup and of course the main aim is for the first team to stay in the Premier League.

“If everything goes well, we will celebrate.”

Noble is spending most of his time in his new role at the famous Chadwell Heath Academy in West Ham, donning some boots and mingling with the younger age groups.

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He laughed: “Actually, you need to hold off on me,” before revealing that he often beats the teenagers at skill games before sending them humorous trash-talking texts.

It’s where he feels most comfortable and admits he hardly spends time in his swanky office at the seniors’ training ground in Rush Green.

It is fair to say that he is unlike any other sporting director across Europe.

Noble continued: “I still want to know what’s going on, how we can get better, how the academy can go on. You have to do that now in the game.

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“We can’t compete financially with Manchester City, Chelsea and even Arsenal and Spurs with their facilities, but they know all doors are open here.

“This place is something special. It always has been. I always say to the employees here: ‘How do we keep doing this? How doesn’t it get stale?’

“How do we manage that I, West Ham United’s sporting director, who has played hundreds and hundreds of games for the club, training with our U14s, U16s and U18s ahead of the FA Youth Cup final?”

West Ham have so far failed to replicate the Golden Generation of players produced in the late 1990s. Players like Carrick, Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Jermain Defoe and Glenn Johnson are all considered top-flight greats today.

Since Johnson made his England debut in 2003, only Declan Rice has moved from the academy to represent the Three Lions senior team, while the last graduate to start a Prem game was defender Jeremy Ngakia – now at Watford – in January 2020 was.

However, Noble can sense a change in the air, suggesting about seven U18 players are good enough to eventually make their debut in Moyes’ first-team, particularly if they take the FA Youth Cup to win that year’s Premier League title Add South under coach Kevin Keen.

Noble added: “The academy is moving in such a great direction, the players we’re putting through, the success of our teams.

“It’s now a place that kids want to come and play because, on the one hand, they see a path and, on the other hand, they see a real cohesion and a team spirit that all the coaches here are pushing.”

Standing in the way of West Ham’s U18 double are Arsenal led by former Gunners star Jack Wilshere.

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Noble has fond memories of Wilshere, now 31, during his short and injury-plagued two-year stay in east London, explaining: “We have a great relationship, we speak regularly.

“We talked a lot when he thought about retiring because he was fed up with the injuries. He’s such a great guy. He rang for my advice and I gave it to him.

“I’m so glad Arsenal picked him up. When the U18s played Arsenal at the Rush Green the other day, he came over before kick-off and I shook his hand.

“But I said, ‘Jack, look, I’m not going to say good luck because I don’t mean it.’ He obviously called me something. But it’s great, you love to see the guys you’ve played with carry on.

“You never know, one day he could become Arsenal’s manager.”

Noble, 35, was reminded of his own Youth Cup days for West Ham last year when his mum pulled out a box of old clips and programmes.

He says he struggles to remember most of them, but added: “The boys won’t forget this one. You are a special group. I tell them all the time, ‘It’s over’.”