England manager Gareth Southgate has confirmed that Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford is set to start against the Netherlands tomorrow.
The Three Lions will travel to Amsterdam to face the Dutch on Friday before hosting Italy at Wembley on Tuesday night.
Southgate, who also confirmed that Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson will continue to wear the captain’s armband, included four goalkeepers in the squad for the two friendlies, and has given Pickford the starting berth in the first match-up. Southgate said;
Jordan Pickford will play in goal tomorrow night.
He is a very agile goalkeeper, quick around his goals, he is capable of making big saves, his distribution is excellent – a really outstanding distributor of the ball with his feet which is how we want to play.
It is a great opportunity for him. He played really well against Germany in November and it’s a good chance for us to see him in another international game.
Joe Hart, Jack Butland and Nick Pope will provide back-up to the former Sunderland youngster tomorrow, and Southgate has admitted that he is yet to decide who will start England’s opening game this summer at the World Cup in Russia. He said;
I know who it would be if we played tomorrow but I think we’ve still got plenty of football to be played.
It is a very tight call at the moment because there is four guys in the squad who have justifiable claims for different reasons.
I would imagine that Tom Heaton will be sitting at home hoping he gets back into Burnley’s team as well, who would want to play a part in that squad as well.
We are not in a situation where we have a goalkeeper who is established in the team and playing at his club regularly and all things are aligned as you might hope at this point.
But that is where we are, I have confidence in all of the guys that they can go in and do the job. At the moment we don’t have a clear number one.
If Jordan Pickford does well tomorrow he’ll give himself a huge boost and gives us food for thought on what we’re doing moving forward.
