Jordan Pickford is happy to keep focusing on himself and his Everton development despite continuing conversations surrounding his competition at international level.
The shot-stopper was crucial as the Blues came away from their Merseyside derby clash with Liverpool on Saturday with a 0-0 draw. The England No.1 produced a string of stunning stops to frustrate the visitors, while at the other end of the pitch Frank Lampard's squad had numerous opportunities of their own to secure the victory.
Conversation over recent weeks has centred around the competition for Pickford's place in Gareth Southgate's England squad with some predicting that Nick Pope, Aaron Ramsdale or Dean Henderson could step up to the role. However, the Everton man is happy to brush those thoughts to one side and solely focus on improving for his club.
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He said: "No, I focus on myself but I’m also happy when the other keepers that I know - you say the GK union - Popey [Nick Pope], you class them as friends and rivals because everyone wants the shirt but I’m happy to see them doing well.
"I’d like to say they’d say the same about me. As long as everyone is doing well you push each other for the England setup. Yeah, it’s good that you have a lot of English keepers doing well.
"It pushes everyone on. You strive to be the best you can be as an individual and as a goalkeeper. When we go with England, we are always pushing to be the best but my focus is to be the best at Everton and to keep striving forward.
"That’s what we do at Everton. We have Bego [Asmir Begovic], Lonners [Andy Lonergan, Billy [Crellin] the young lad. We all strive to be the best, you keep pushing each other day to day."
Many have picked up on the goalkeeper's string of brilliant performances over the course of the last year, and have noted his increased maturity on the pitch. Pickford wore the captain's armband on Saturday as Everton took on Liverpool.
And he believes that he is always on the hunt to learn more and continue to improve, while also becoming a solid part of a leadership team at the club which has significantly grown over the summer.
"You learn, don’t you? You get better. I’m getting older, I’m 28 now. I’ve done my paper round when I was younger, it is just about learning.
"You never want to stop learning, you always want to be better. That’s what I seem to do. Whatever that is - whether that’s technically, tactically, mentally, physically, I’ll keep doing it to be the best Jordan Pickford I can be.
"I think it is always nice to be captain but I’ve always felt I’m a leader, I try to help the lads on the pitch by my communication on the pitch. Seamus is the club captain but you have to have more than one captain in your team to be a complete team unit with team spirit.
"I think you can see that by the last few performances. You’ve got Coads who has come in who was a captain at Wolves, Tarks as well, Amadou has come in and he’s very talkative. You have to have more than one leader on the pitch and we’ve got a great selection of that."
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