Pickford: 'We're going in the right direction'

2018 has been a huge year for Pickford, after impressing hugely at the World Cup, and he is seeing even more positives after the 2-1 Nations League win over Croatia. 

"It has been great,' Pickford said. "It has been a right learning curve for a lot of us and a step forward and we know where we stand.

"The main thing was to be beating top sides for starters and we have done that so we are going in the right direction. It was a great win. We showed resilience and character and team spirit."

The 'Three Lions' beat Croatia in a repeat of the World Cup semi-final after completing a turnaround in the final 12 minutes. Jesse Lingard and Harry Kane scored late on to cancel out Andrej Kramaric's deflected opener. 

"When you go 1-0 down it's always tough against a top side like that and we popped up when we needed to," Pickford added.

"You dominate the first half, they have one chance and they score. But we dug in, and the fans were great as well. It's our team spirit, it's quality and our mental toughness as a group, we stuck in there, it is not always pretty at times.

"We played some quality football but then set-pieces win you the games."