How do you solve a problem like Mark Noble?

Not being gay, it's not often I think of The Sound of Music but with a German having occupied central midfield at the Boleyn, a little adaptation of the Maria song seems reasonable in the circumstances.

How do you solve a problem like Mark Noble?
How do you drop a god or sell him on?
How do you find a word that sums up Mark Noble?
A potential genius? A midfield general? Or a clown?

Now, I admit to being undecided on the question of Noble. For such a young player, his career has certainly been checkered so far! A highly promising player, he needed to be reshaped by Pardew and then sent out on loan. Turds arrived and transformed Noble more than Zola ever transformed Cole, but received no real credit for it. There were many heroes of the great escape - Tevez, Ferdinand, Collins, Green, Neill, Zamora, the Assistant Linesman in the Blackburn game, Mini Me Sammy Lee, Sir Alex for resting top players in that final game, Neil Warnock and Shafting United...and, without question, Mark Noble. Who will ever forget Green's heroics against Arsenal, Tevez's winner at Old Trafford and Noble's performance against Bolton? But after a couple of goodish seasons under Turds, his career suddenly nosedived. To describe Noble as average over the last couple of seasons is probably to do a disservice to every Mr Average living in his three bed semi with his 2.2 children.

Noble certainly divides opinion. Some believe he is Mr West Ham and argue he has a great future at the club. Some believe he is crap and should be offloaded as soon as possible. Some blame Parker, claiming Noble and Scott cannot play together in the same side. Others reckon Noble has been suffering from burn out because of U21s duties and persistent injuries, and argue he will come again now he has had a rest. Some have even blamed his baby, as if Noble himself was "with child"!

One thing is indisputable: Noble lacks a key asset - pace. Yes he has a big heart but that heart isn't any good when he is trailing in the wake of a quicker player. I also suspect he has overdone the weights. He looks too loaded with upper body muscle to me and this has probably slowed him still further. Unlike Parker and Behrami, Noble also lacks a trick. Parker can turn out of trouble, Behrami can dribble and fall down injured, Noble just gives away the ball.

On the other hand, people are perhaps missing a key factor - when did Noble's career go into reverse? Doesn't his decline dovetail quite nicely with the arrival of Zola?

Now I'm not going to conduct another Zola assassination here, but everybody seems to be in agreement that Zola's great strength was his belief in his players and the way he encouraged them to play the beautiful game. My question is, should Noble be playing the beautiful game, or should he be encouraged to play within his limitations? Pardew took a tricky, creative player and told him to become more functional. Curbishley developed Noble into a combative box to box midfielder. Did Zola's beautiful game perhaps turn Noble's head and encourage him to turn the clock back?

I hope that as part of a three man centre midfield, with two attacking wide players, Noble can come again. The problem under Zola was that we tried to play everything through the middle and there was never any time or space. The central midfield was more congested than the Central Line at 8am on a Monday morning and, no matter where a player looked, there was no out ball. Maybe, just maybe, with the return of width and shape, Mark Noble may come into his own again.

There were a few promising signs towards the end of last season. Some of the tackles against Sunderland and Wigan were as thunderous and as effective as Dicks at his very best. And Noble even picked out a couple of good passes. There wasn't enough to justify the sort of praise MOTD laughably manufactured, but there was a whiff of a recovery, and against Everton he very nearly scored a beautiful goal.

I would stick with Noble personally in the hope that Avram, like Turds, can encourage him to do the simple things well rather than the complex things badly.