Ben Foster has admitted he will be ‘in Sir Alex Ferguson’s face’ next season, in a bid to improve his chances of claiming the number one jersey for England.
The keeper has been named in the England squad by Fabio Capello for the friendly with Slovakia and World Cup qualifier with Ukraine, despite being on the fringe of the first team at Manchester United.
Foster is aware that in order to press his claims for inclusion at the 2010 World Cup, he needs to be featuring regularly at club level.
The problem for Foster is the path to the first team at United is blocked by the sizeable presence of Edwin van der Sar and the Dutchman is showing no signs of heading into the sunset.
The keeper is not keen on heading out on loan, as his priority is making the grade at Old Trafford, but he is aware it could impact on his short-term international chances.
”It is nice to get a bit of recognition,” Foster said on Setanta Sports News. “Before now I could not really expect to get in the team having not played and not done a lot, but it is nice to get recognised by Mr Capello.
”It is a big boost for me so I have got to push on from here.”
Assessing his club situation, Foster added: “I don’t know if it (loan) is going to be an option, you would have to ask Alex Ferguson about that.
”It is important to be able to play first-team football, I think everyone knows that.
”It is a balancing act really, I am at the biggest club in the world and I don’t want to leave that.”
Foster is rated extremely highly by Ferguson and he will to make life difficult for his manager in the summer.
“It is the biggest competition in the world, the World Cup and I know the manager is only going to pick the players he thinks is right – the players that are playing regularly,” added Foster.
”I know I’ve got to go back in the summer, the start of next season and get in the manager’s face as much as I can. I’ve got to get into the squad really, it’s as simple as that really.”