GARETH Southgate said the battle to be England's number one at the World Cup is 'really tight'.

The Three Lions boss selected four goalkeepers in his squad for friendlies with Holland and Italy this month, including Burnley's Nick Pope.

The 25-year-old will face competition from Joe Hart, Jack Butland and Jordan Pickford for action in Amsterdam on Friday night and at Wembley the following Tuesday.

But Pope's Clarets teammate Tom Heaton is also on the comeback trail and keen to force his way back into England contention, having been in every one of Southgate's squads until injury struck in September.

Southgate did reveal that he would know his number one if the World Cup started tomorrow, but said there was still plenty of time for contenders to impress before he has to settle on the decision for real in June.

"It is a really tight competition between all of those guys,” he said.

“If we had a game tomorrow, we know who we would select and we wouldn’t want a lack of clarity going into the tournament.

“We'll be clear on that decision but it's not one that I'd want to announce now because there's a lot of football to be played and opportunities for people to impress.”

While Southgate has selected four goalkeepers this week, he can only include three in his 23-man squad for the World Cup in Russia.

Hart has been included despite having an indifferent time with West Ham of late, but Southgate was keen to capitalise on his experience, with Heaton out injured and Fraser Forster out of the picture at Southampton.

“I spoke with Joe a few weeks ago and it didn't look like he was going to play before these games,” Southgate said.

“At that time there was only three goalkeepers fit who had international experience, as Tom Heaton's not fit at the moment and Fraser's not in the side at Southampton.

“Joe has 74 caps and is a big personality in the group so we felt it was important at this point that we kept him in the squad.

“He's been unfortunate that West Ham have had a spell in which he had to miss a game, because it was against Man City, and the other goalkeeper performed well.

“Joe's now only had one game back in, so it remains to be seen whether he gets a run of games between now and the end of the season.”