Everton winger Theo Walcott has said that he is targeting a return to Gareth Southgate’s England squad after an impressive start to the season at Goodison Park.
90 Min | Aug 27, 2018
Everton winger Theo Walcott has said that he is targeting a return to Gareth Southgate's England squad after an impressive start to the season at Goodison Park.
The former Arsenal winger has not featured for the Three Lions since being dropped from the squad in March 2017, despite scoring 17 goals in 29 appearances for the Gunners during the 2016/17 campaign.
But an impressive start to the current campaign, in which the 29-year-old has scored two goals in two games, has put his name back into contention for a recall to the national squad.
Speaking with the Daily Mail after Everton's 2-2 draw with Bournemouth – a game where Walcott scored one goal and played a big hand in the other – Walcott said: "Yes, obviously you always want to play for your country. I've got 47 caps and I want that to be a lot more. So I'll continue to play well and we'll see where that takes me."
Walcott was once considered the future of the England national team, as he was surprisingly called up to Sven-Goran Eriksson's 2006 World Cup squad despite never kicking a ball in the Premier League.
Since then, despite rocking up nearly a half-century of England caps, Walcott has gone on to appear in only one more international tournament with his country – the 2012 UEFA European Championships in Poland and Ukraine.
Following Southgate's decision to drop Walcott from the national squad eighteen months ago, the Three Lions have progressed massively under the current England manager, reaching the semi-final stage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia this summer.
Southgate is set to name his first post-tournament England squad this week for their UEFA Nations League matches against Spain and Switzerland in September, and Walcott will be hoping to see his name back on the list.