Jordan Pickford named as England No.1

Ian Watson

Jordan Pickford appears to have won the race to be England’s first-choice goalkeeper at the World Cup after being handed the number one jersey.

The Everton stopper seemed to be in pole position as he was handed the gloves for Saturday’s warm-up victory at home to Nigeria.

Pickford, 24, has just three senior caps but has been backed by Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate and now looks set to start in Russia.

Jack Butland and Nick Pope are England’s other goalkeepers for the tournament after Joe Hart, who featured in nine of the 10 qualifiers, was left out.

The confirmation of England’s 23-man squad was listed on the FIFA website and contained no last-minute changes to the names originally selected by Southgate last month.

Uncapped Liverpool full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold, who could make his debut in Thursday’s friendly against Costa Rica, has been given the number 22 shirt.

Elsewhere, captain Harry Kane will sport the number nine while Tottenham team-mate Dele Alli will wear 20 – in-keeping with their Spurs squad numbers.

Although no longer a simple case of picking numbers 1-11 in a starting line-up, the fact Harry Maguire and Jesse Lingard have been given numbers six and seven respectively leads to a suggestion both look set to feature prominently in Russia.

England squad:

1 Jordan Pickford
2 Kyle Walker
3 Danny Rose
4 Eric Dier
5 John Stones
6 Harry Maguire
7 Jesse Lingard
8 Jordan Henderson
9 Harry Kane
10 Raheem Sterling
11 Jamie Vardy
12 Kieran Trippier
13 Jack Butland
14 Danny Welbeck
15 Gary Cahill
16 Phil Jones
17 Fabien Delph
18 Ashley Young
19 Marcus Rashford
20 Dele Alli
21 Reuben Loftus-Cheek
22 Trent Alexander-Arnold
23 Nick Pope

 

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