JORDAN PICKFORD is confident he is capable of handling the pressure of being England’s World Cup number one, with Gareth Southgate set to select the Wearsider for his side’s opening group game against Tunisia in two weeks’ time.

Pickford played the full 90 minutes at Wembley on Saturday as first-half goals from Gary Cahill and Harry Kane saw England claim a 2-1 win over Nigeria in their penultimate warm-up game.

It remains to be seen whether the former Sunderland trainee remains in the starting line-up for Thursday’s final friendly against Costa Rica, but he is now a strong favourite to line up in Volgograd when England kick-off their World Cup campaign on June 18.

Saturday’s game was only Pickford’s third outing in an England shirt, but he showed no sign of nerves as he successfully dealt with Nigeria’s second-half attacking and was not to blame for Alex Iwobi’s 48th-minute goal.

It is only six-and-a-half years since the 24-year-old was making his senior debut as a loanee at Darlington in a 1-0 defeat to Fleetwood Town, and he did not make his first appearance for Sunderland until January 2016.

His career has taken off spectacularly since then, with last summer’s £25m move to Everton catapulting him into an elite group of English goalkeepers, but while representing his country at a World Cup finals would represent another huge step forward, he is confident he would be able to take the challenge in his stride.

 “This is a step up, but I’ve had a lot of steps up in my career and I’ve handled them all so far,” said Pickford, who was born and raised in Washington, and joined Sunderland’s academy at the age of eight. “That’s one thing I think I’ve been really good at – I’ve always taken my opportunity when it’s come along.

“In football, you generally only get one shot, and you have to take it. I’ve always taken it. Hopefully, I’ve done that so far with England as well. I don’t think I really show any pressure on the pitch, I don’t let it bother me. Hopefully, I just my play my own game. I play out from the back, and don’t show any nerves. So far, I think I’ve been embracing the environment of it all.”

Pickford started the season behind Joe Hart and Jack Butland in the England pecking order, but the former has fallen out of the picture entirely after finding himself on the substitutes’ bench at West Ham and the latter has paid the price for a string of error-strewn displays as Stoke City dropped out of the Premier League.

Gareth Southgate is yet to confirm his goalkeeping pecking order, with Burnley’s Nick Pope also in the mix, but Pickford’s presence in Saturday’s starting line-up provided a powerful indication of the former Middlesbrough manager’s thinking.

“Nothing’s been confirmed yet,” said Pickford. “The manager said that in the pre-game talk, so I’ve just got to keep doing what I’m doing, and putting in performances like I did at the weekend.

“I need to keep training really hard, but that’s all I’ve ever done right through my life. I’ve always trained really hard, and then tried to enjoy the game on the Saturday when it’s come along. I’ve done that ever since I was a young lad at Sunderland, that’s been my attitude all through my career. Hopefully, I’m putting myself in good stead.

“Obviously getting the nod at the weekend was brilliant for myself because it’s another cap ticked off and another solid performance. That’s three good performances from the three games I’ve had.”

Prior to the weekend, Pickford was still to concede a goal in an England shirt, having kept clean sheets in the goalless draw with Germany and March’s 1-0 win over Holland in Amsterdam.

Iwobi’s second-half strike ruined that record, but Pickford was still pleased with the way in which his team-mates regrouped in the final half-hour of the game to record a victory.

England were wobbling when Iwobi scored three minutes after the interval, and it took Southgate’s side ten or 15 minutes to come to terms with their opponents’ tactical reshuffle. A similar struggle could prove catastrophic at a World Cup finals, but England’s players got there in the end, and the experience of having to think on their feet could prove valuable.

“They changed system and it took us a minute or two to get used to that,” admitted Pickford. “That minute or two where they changed their system, they just caught us a little bit cold. But we were ready for them after that, and they’re in the World Cup as well so they’re a very good team. In the first half, we played some very good football.

“We have to be ready for things like that. You have to be able to adjust to things. We know the technical ability we’ve got in the squad, and we know we can go out and create a lot of opportunities.

“It’s about defending and adapting to stuff that happens, and I felt as though we did that. You learn from things like that, and we could have scored another couple of goals of our own in the second half. I know we didn’t have as many chances, but we still did important stuff.”

Pickford was pleased with his own performance, with his distribution once again forming a key part of England’s ability to switch defence into attack.

As well as being a supremely talented shot-stopper, the North-Easterner is comfortably England’s best goalkeeping option when it comes to dealing with passes under pressure and arrowing a long pass into a team-mate at the other end of the pitch.

In an era when goalkeepers are expected to be sweepers, Pickford’s pinpoint passing ability makes him stand out, and with the likes of Raheem Sterling and Jesse Lingard boasting an abundance of pace, his distribution could be a major asset in Russia.

“I thought (my) performance was solid enough,” he said. “I played from the back, and I thought my game management was good. I’m obviously disappointed with the goal, but that’s football sometimes. I thought overall it was a good performance.”