JAMES Tarkowski's latest England call-up is 'fantastic', according to Sean Dyche.

The centre back won his first cap in the Wembley friendly with Italy in March and was placed on standby for the World Cup.

But after a week of training at St George's Park Tarkowski was forced to withdraw to undergo hernia surgery.

He was fit for the start of the new season and has begun the campaign well enough to earn a Three Lions recall for the Nations League clash with Spain at Wembley and the friendly with Switzerland at the King Power Stadium.

Tarkowski will look to win a second cap either on Saturday or a week on Tuesday and Dyche is delighted to see him back in the squad.

"I think he’s very unfortunate with his injury in the summer. I don’t know if he would have gone anyway, to be clear, but he was very unfortunate," he said.

"So far, so good. He’s up and running and all credit to him. It’s fantastic for him to be called up again."

The retirement of Gary Cahill has opened up a defensive place in Gareth Southgate's squad, but Dyche believes Tarkowski has to keep up his level of performances to get into the starting XI.

"It’s opened up slightly," he said. "A couple of players maybe deemed to be in front of him at the moment, so he needs to keep going about his business in the right manner.

"Gareth does come here a lot which is good to check out our players, so good for him."