GARETH Southgate insists he hasn't settled on his England side for the first game of the World Cup.

The Three Lions boss picked a strong side for the 2-1 win over Nigeria at Wembley, with Everton's Jordan Pickford starting in goal and playing the full game.

That could spell bad news for Burnley's Nick Pope in the battle to be No. 1 in Russia, but the England boss said every member of his squad had to be ready if called upon.

Pope may yet get a chance to impress in the friendly with Costa Rica at Elland Road on Thursday as he seeks to win his first cap and Southgate is happy with the competition in his squad.

“I think we’ve been pretty clear for a fair while, but there is real competition for places in certain areas of the pitch," he said.

“Everyone has to maintain their level, the team we picked today, from my experience of weeks leading into the first game of a tournament and the first couple of games, is that that will evolve with various different things, everyone has to be ready to come into the side.

"I wouldn’t necessarily be saying the team that started today is the team that starts against Tunisia, but clearly it might not be far away."

England finish their World Cup preparations against on Thursday against Costa Rica and they get their World Cup underway against Tunisia on Monday, June 18.

They enjoyed an encouraging first half against Nigeria, with Gary Cahill and Harry Kane scoring, but endured a nervy second half when Alex Iwobi reduced the deficit.

Southgate said: "I think I was really pleased with the first half, it was an excellent performance with the ball, really good movement and interchange of play with the front four.

"We managed to overload midfield, and when Harry or Raheem (Sterling) came short, Dele (Alli) and Jesse (Lingard) made some fantastic runs in behind. We didn’t always find them or see them, but there was a lot of unselfish one and two touch play that really pleased me.

"We also won the ball back quickly, and played from back with good composure. So that was as good a half as we’ve had.

"Second half, easy to say we were complacent, but I don’t think that was the case, it took time to get to grips with their change of system, we didn’t quite work out their midfield quickly enough, they had a long passage of possession, got in behind us, we were a bit slow to react, 2-1 and it was a really good test from then on.

"It could have gone against us for a brief spell, but we got through that period, got our composure and still caused problems with the ball.

"We didn’t concede any real clear chances. In general we can improve, we have to learn from that five-six minute spell, because that could be enough to put you out in a tournament, but we were definitely more of a threat on goal than in previous matches.

"I was pleased with the performance, we are improving as a team, that happened again today, we transferred our training into the match, physically looked in good condition, the contribution of the substitutes was good, so it was good exercise and another step in the right direction in terms of building belief in this group of players."