Oxford United's Rob Hall relishing Carabao Cup clash with West Ham United

The U’s are bidding to pull off a shock when they host Premier League West Ham United in the third round of the Carabao Cup (7.45pm).

The winger has seen first hand what it takes to reach the highest level after graduating from the Hammers’ youth set-up, drawing on the work ethic of one player in particular as he came through the ranks.

Mark Noble was playing when Hall made his West Ham debut in December 2011 and has gone on to amass more than 450 games for the London side.

Hall was always confident his former teammate would enjoy a stellar career and will be telling the U’s squad about the hard work he witnessed first hand.

“The first time I came across Nobes was when he was about 17 and doing extras in the gym and on the training pitch,” Hall said.

“Even the coaches were saying that this is the person you need to look up to, because his teammates were at home.

“This was 5.30pm at night and he was doing possibly his third session of the day – things like that helped him get to where he is now.

“He’s been a consistent Premier League player for ten to 15 years and is probably the most underrated player that hasn’t got an England cap.

“We all looked up to him then, and any current young players at West Ham will still do that.”

Tonight’s visitors rose to fifth in the Premier League with a 2-0 win over Manchester United at the London Stadium.

Hammers boss Manuel Pellegrini is likely to name a very different starting line-up to that game, but several players with international experience could still be involved tonight.

And Hall revealed United will be raring to go against whichever side is put out.

“The players we’re coming up against are going to be of high quality, so it’s just finding a way of not letting them do the things they want to do,” he said.

“It’ll be a joy to be involved in, even if I’m on the bench, because it’s not often a big club like this brings this type of player to compare ourselves to.”