Everton and England’s Jordan Pickford warned over returning from injury too soon

Pickford will miss his country’s last two games before the World Cup, the Nations League meetings with Italy and Germany

Pickford is currently out with a thigh injury (PA)

Frank Lampard has urged the injured Jordan Pickford not to try and come back from injury too quickly and jeopardise his chances of going to the World Cup after joking that the goalkeeper would play for England “on one quad” if he could.

Pickford will miss his country’s last two games before the World Cup, the Nations League meetings with Italy and Germany, with a thigh injury he sustained in the Merseyside derby.

Lampard hopes Pickford will be fit for Everton’s first match after the international break, away at Southampton, and has been in talks with Gareth Southgate and the player himself about managing his return.

He said: “Jordan would go and play on one quad for England in a friendly next week. We have to be sure that we do the right thing.

“I have spoken to Gareth about it and our physios and England’s physios are in conjunction together, talking about it to make sure we do the right thing for Jordan.

“And the right thing for Jordan is the right thing for Everton and England. We just have to rehab it well. Hopefully it will be in the next two or three weeks and he will be back, it’s as simple as that. We wouldn’t take any risks with him.

“If we did, it would affect our batch of games up to the winter break. If you were to re-injure the quad, it would obviously affect his run up to the World Cup. So we are being very careful with that. We are working with Jordan and England.

“He is keen, he is really keen. I learnt as a player the negatives of that. I re-injured my quad a few times, trying to push my physio to get me back quicker.

“I’m now more experienced, so I can be on the other hand and make sure he does it in the right way. The experts are the physios. He’s keen but he is very mature. He wants to play but we will find the right way.”