'A lot of opportunity' - Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford given England hope by Gareth Southgate

The Whites forward, who has six goals from his opening seven Premier League games this season, including a fine hat-trick against Aston Villa, was brought up unprompted by Southgate in today's press conference to reveal the England squad.

Southgate went with Tammy Abraham, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford as his four strikers, but when explaining why there was no place for Newcastle United's Callum Wilson, the national team boss gave Bamford's early season form a mention and gave the 27-year-old hope for future involvement.

"Callum is a player who has worked with us before," said Southgate.

"We just felt across the Autumn we didn't want to make too many changes to the squad. We have Harry, Dominic Calvert-Lewin played exceptionally well in his matches with us, Danny Ings unfortunately misses out this time [through injury] and we unfortunately haven't really been able to give Tammy the game time we might have hoped last month so didn't think it was right to leave him out at this stage - he's played well in the last couple of games for his club, we know that he's a player of high potential.

"Both Callum Wilson and Patrick Bamford have done very well in the last few weeks for their clubs. We're only a quarter of the way through the season, the next time we're together we'll be three quarters of the way through the season. There's a lot of football to be played and a lot of opportunity for those players to press a claim while they're playing with their clubs."

Bamford's form has prompted suggestions that Southgate might bring him into the England fold and Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa has been asked repeatedly about the possibility, but refuses to comment on national team selection issues because he doesn't feel it is his place to do so. The Republic of Ireland have previously expressed interest in the striker and with David McGoldrick's retirement from the international scene this week, would presumably still be keen to get Bamford involved.

For Leeds, Bamford has 31 goals in 74 league outings and while the chances he missed in the Championship last season became a major talking point, particularly with Eddie Nketiah on the bench as a loan signing for the first half of the campaign, the top flight appears to suit Bielsa's preferred frontman.

He scored in each of his first three outings, against Liverpool, Fulham and Sheffield United and then added a treble at Villa Park, all in a second half demolition.