England goalkeeping situation looks cut and dried ahead of World Cup

Injury permitting, it’s a given that Manchester City goalie Joe Hart will be the England number one at the World Cup finals in Brazil.

He is massively odds-on at 1/50 with Coral to be in the 23-man squad selected by Roy Hodgson for the tournament and 1/8 to start the opening group game against Italy.

Ben Foster, who played under the Three Lions boss when he was in charge at West Bromwich Albion, has also been tempted back into the fold and is 2/5 to make the plane (but 6/1 to start the first match).

Former Manchester United custodian Foster has kept just two clean sheets, however, in an injury-interrupted season as the Baggies struggle to preserve Premier League status.

If odds are anything to go by, then Hodgson faces a straight choice between Celtic stopper Fraser Forster and Norwich City’s John Ruddy for the third and final keeper spot. Both are shorter than even-money at 4/7 and 10/11 respectively.

Neither Forster (10/1 to start against Italy) nor Ruddy have much to crow about when playing at elite level, though.

Granted, the former is guaranteed silverware at Celtic where – in the continued absence from the Scottish Premiership of Old Firm rivals Rangers – there is little competition, but his Champions League stats are much less impressive.

Forster is beaten on average once every two games in his domestic league, but that says more about Scotland’s top-flight as a barometer of quality than his own credentials.

In the group stage of elite European competition this term, however, he conceded a mean of more than twice per match (six in 14 or two-and-a-third per outing).

Canaries keeper Ruddy, meanwhile, posts the poorest league average of any goalie remotely close to the senior England setup. Despite keeping clean sheets in a third (10 in 30) of Premier League games this term, he also has the third-worst defence in the division playing in front of him.

As Norwich have seen 48 goals fly into their own net – while their forwards have toiled to score half that total – that means Ruddy has let in 1.6 per match.