Mark Noble: 'West Ham United happier without Dimitri Payet'

West Ham United captain Mark Noble has said that the club has become "a happy place" now that Dimitri Payet has moved to Marseille.

The Frenchman went on strike at the start of the January transfer window in order to push through a return to his homeland, eventually moving on in a £20m deal at the end of the month.

Payet's stance had reportedly caused much frustration in the Hammers dressing room, with one report claiming that he had been removed from the players' WhatsApp group as the transfer saga rumbled on.

"Rubbish. It's totally rubbish," Noble told Sky Sports News when asked about the story. "I think he was only removed when he had actually signed for Marseille and it was done. Obviously you don't want hundreds of messages going to him while we're still going.

"We were gutted, the players and the manager - you could probably hear from his press conference how gutted he was. It had a massive impact on our team because he was a big character in our changing room and as the manager said, the players loved him and would do anything for him.

"I think it had a massive effect on all of us, the French boys, maybe the Spanish boys, the English boys, and it sort of got a bit disjointed - it was a tough time for all of us but it became a happy place again. It was on the manager's mind and he wanted to get rid of - not Dimmy, but the whole situation. We've got to deal with all of that and the best way to do that was winning games and that's what we've done."

The Hammers have now won three of their last four Premier League games to move up to ninth in the table.