'Gomez is good enough for a World Cup spot'
Liverpool U23 coach Neil Critchley believes Joe Gomez should realistically target a place in England's World Cup squad after impressing in friendlies against Germany and Brazil.
Gomez was one of the surprising names on Gareth Southgate's England squad for this month's friendlies but the Liverpool defender justified his selection with a solid performance after coming off the bench for his debut against Germany on Friday.
He then built on that performance with a man-of-the-match showing on his first England start in the goalless draw to Brazil at Wembley on Monday night.
Since recovering from a long-term knee injury earlier this year, the 20-year-old has enjoyed a rapid rise to international football and Critchley, who worked with Gomez during his rehabilitation at Liverpool, insists the youngster is good enough for a spot in Russia.
"I think you can see that when he's doing these interviews after the Brazil game and he's such a level-headed young man. He wants to improve. He's got that hunger to get better," said Critchley.
"It was a fantastic performance from him. I think we've played a really tiny part in that. It's all down to Joe and himself in his own development.
"He's very mature for his age mentally it seems. He's ticks a lot of boxes, doesn't he? You've just got to look at his all-round game.
"Probably the one thing that he hasn't got is experience but if he keeps performing like he does on Tuesday night then the experience will come very quickly because he'll be playing for Liverpool and England.
"I think Joe now has gone well past us [the U23s], hasn't he? His ambitions and aspirations will be getting into our first team, staying in our first team and possibly now going to the World Cup - and rightly so."