Gareth Southgate has a simple choice to make between Wolves and Aston Villa players

The Premier League is no longer oblivious to Max Kilman - and England boss Gareth Southgate certainly isn’t.

For months it has felt like regular watchers of Wolverhampton Wanderers are the only ones privy to Kilman’s talents. His name wouldn’t have even come up in conversation for most England supporters when discussing Southgate’s central defensive options.

Wolves’ stunning defensive record of 18 goals conceded in 24 Premier League matches, and seven clean sheets in the last 13, has finally turned heads.

Interested Three Lions fans will have noticed that Bruno Lage has two Englishmen performing superbly in the heart of his defence. Conor Coady has been a regular under Southgate for the past 18 months, but there are now growing calls for his defensive colleague Kilman to join up with England too.

While Coady is having the best season of his career, Kilman is redefining what most Wolves fans believed a centre-back should be.

The 6ft 5in defender is built more like a Six Nations second row star than a footballer, but he possesses all the grace of an athlete half his size.

Kilman has been given the freedom to play by Lage, and the towering centre-back has raced forward with the ball on countless occasions this season. In Wolves’ win at Old Trafford on January 3, Kilman sprinted past three Manchester United defenders with a 60-yard ball carry down the right wing.

On Sunday, Kilman tricked his way past a couple of Leicester City players before spraying a perfect pass out to Rayan Ait-Nouri on the left in the build-up to Daniel Podence's winning goal.

“He wants to learn every day, he is improving his game; how to defend, how to attack,” Lage told “If you look at Daniel’s goal, you can see how it starts. It was him