West Ham United captain Mark Noble has nothing but praise for the special team spirit that has been created throughout the squad and hopes it will help them qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Europa League.
Despite missing a number of key players through injury, Slaven Bilic's side still managed to come away with a memorable victory over Bournemouth in the first ever Premier League game to be played at the new Stadium.
Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini, Aaron Cresswell and Club record signing Andre Ayew have all been forced to miss the start of the season through injury while Andy Carroll has also been ruled out for four to six weeks with a knee injury.
But the players who came into the side showed once again the fighting spirit that saw the Hammers enjoy one of their best ever seasons last year and secure their first Premier League victory of the season.
Noble said: “When you miss seven of your best players it starts to hurt you but I thought against Bournemouth the lads were fantastic.
“When you lose good players like Payet, Lanzini, Cresswell, Carroll and the lads can still pull off a victory like that, it makes it even more special.
“In this league you are not just going to roll over teams. We hardly did that last season and it was some of the best football we have played for a long time. 1-0 is the greatest win in football and you keep a clean sheet. We scored a late goal and the fans are buzzing. We probably deserved it in the end.
“We made a couple of mistakes last season against them and they punished us. We have had a few players back in the team who have not played a lot, like Gokhan Tore, Sam Byram and we still got the victory.
“I loved being out there and it was really enjoyable. It is different because we got back late Friday morning from the Europa League tie but when you are playing a team who have rested all week, it makes the victory even more special and we have a great team spirit.
“We have this fantastic new Stadium but we needed to get points on the board, otherwise you could be in trouble. We can now go to Manchester City with confidence.”
Noble is hoping new signing Jonathan Calleri can get off the mark sooner rather than later and can already see the quality that he is bringing to the squad.
The Argentine forward had a header cleared off the line against Astra Giurgiu in the first leg last week and almost netted his first Premier League goal last Sunday when he burst clear of the Bournemouth defence and fired his shot inches past the post.
With the tie against the Romanian side evenly poised at 1-1, Noble hopes Calleri can score his first goal at the new Stadium on Thursday night.
Noble added: “I was gutted that Jonathan could not make it 2-0 right at the end. I have watched YouTube videos of him scoring goals and he is a good finisher. I have also seen that in training.
“Coming to a new country it would have been nice for him to get off the mark in the Premier League but I am pretty sure he will score goals for us.”