WEST HAM skipper Mark Noble has been told to take a holiday – to sort out his mind and body.
The midfielder misses Saturday’s visit of Leicester because of a dead leg.
And manager Slaven Bilic wants him to use his downtime to forget about the barracking that he is getting from Hammers fans.
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Noble, 29, has already hit back at the terrace critics, claiming they “don’t really understand the game.”
And Bilic is backing his skipper 100 per cent – but wants him to down tools and take a break. The Croat, 48, said: “He is exactly what a captain should be, yet sometimes it is too much.
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“Sometimes he takes it home and thinks about that – not only about him but about the club.
“A man can take only what he can take. I spoke about that with him.
“He is not available for Saturday’s Premier League game and after that we have an international break.
“I left it to him and it’s his decision to go away somewhere for a week to get away and come back as strong as he was.”
Bilic also admitted he regrets sending rookie defender Reece Oxford, 18, on loan to Reading.
The centre-back has clocked up just 17 minutes of action since joining in January, with Royals boss Jaap Stam blaming a lack of intensity in Hammers’ training sessions.
But Bilic said: “We are training very intensely here. I expected him to play more and there were other Championship clubs who wanted him.
“I wish he had gone to one of them.”