Mark Noble says the desire shown by West Ham United during their 1-0 win over Crystal Palace provided evidence of the squad’s commitment.

Manuel Lanzini’s first half strike was the difference at Selhurst Park and the Hammers showed great spirit to hold onto their lead after Aaron Cresswell’s 75th minute red card.

The effort earned Slaven Bilic’s side only their second win of the season and Noble feels the players’ desire finally translated into a positive result.

“I said in an interview the other day that everyone really does care, and I think we showed that,” he told the club website.

“They’ve got big players like Connor Wickham and Christian Benteke up front, but I thought our defence did a magnificent job.

“We looked at how Palace play and everything goes through Benteke so we knew we had to deal with that threat.

“Cheikou [Kouyate] is great in the air, then alongside Reidy (Winston Reid) and Angelo [Ogbonna], obviously Cresswell is back in the side, we played like a proper team.”

Victory on Saturday saw West Ham climb out of the relegation zone and move up to 15th in the Premier League.

A home game against bottom of the table Sunderland on Saturday should provide them with the ideal opportunity to build on their first league win since August.

West Ham’s captain is taking nothing for granted, however, and insists the clash against the winless Black Cats will provide a stern test.

He said: “It’s going to be a tough game, they need the points too. By all accounts we’ve had a terrible start, but now we’re only a point behind Leicester who won the league last year.

“If we start to put wins together, we’ll start to climb the table and get to where we want to be.”