Huddersfield Town goalkeeper Lee Nicholls responds to England clamour and makes mentality claim

Huddersfield Town have sprung plenty of pleasant surprises this season, but none more so than Lee Nicholls. The goalkeeper had played just seven Championship games before this season and spent most of last campaign warming the bench with third-tier Milton Keynes Dons.

Now, the 29 year old has emerged as the best goalkeeper in the Championship on a number of measures, the headline being that he has kept more clean sheets than any other stopper in the division. His constant assured performances and ability to make match-changing saves have made him a firm favourite of Terriers supporters: he has just won the Blue & White Members Club player of the month award for the fourth time this campaign.

Nicholls told the club’s YouTube channel of the praise that has come his way: “It just blows me away. I wasn’t playing League One 12 months ago, so it is just crazy hearing people saying stuff like that, but for me personally I’ve got here by working hard day by day. I said it to the boys after the Millwall game that it doesn’t matter where we are, it doesn’t matter where we’re going to go. What matters is the next game; training matters tomorrow.

“I said to Clem (Paul Clements, head of goalkeeping) recently…we had a meeting and I said that in pre-season when I first walked in it was ‘the next ball’, it was nothing else, whatever’s going to happen after that doesn’t matter until it came.

“I think that’s what we’ve got to go back to and something I’ve got to stick to regardless of what’s going on. But I’m in the best place of my career here and I just want it to carry on.”

That incredible form has led Town fans to cry out for their keeper to be included in Gareth Southgate’s England squad, especially given that West Bromwich