A couple of uncapped Everton players have been backed to force their way into Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup plans and potentially get themselves on the England flight to the tournament in North America this summer.

Although Jordan Pickford has been England number one since making his debut under previous manager Gareth Southgate in November 2017 and has been capped 81 times – more than doubling the previous record of a Three Lions player while with the Blues (Phil Jagielka, 40) – the goalkeeper remains the only current member of the Everton squad to be part of the national team set-up. On-loan Jack Grealish, the first £100million English footballer, has been capped 39 times and played in all five of England’s matches in the last World Cup finals in Qatar in 2022, but he hasn’t been picked since scoring his fourth international goal in a 3-1 win in Finland on October 13, 2024, under caretaker boss Lee Carsley and is now seemingly ruled out for the rest of the season following an operation on a stress fracture injury in his left foot.

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