It was around this time last year that Mark Noble began to look, with a sharper focus, towards the end of his West Ham career and a farewell that seemed all upside.
The dream send-off, a ride off into the Andalusian sunset with the Europa League trophy strapped to the top of an old Cortina, never quite materialised. But as Noble rolled through the rituals of his final games in claret and blue, he was comforted by the idea that he was leaving his boyhood club in ruder health that at any point since his graduation from its academy almost 20 years earlier.
