Townsend must play - Roy

Cape Town - England manager Roy Hodgson has warned Andros Townsend that he needs to be featuring regularly for Tottenham to remain in his thoughts.

The 23-year-old winger broke into the Three Lions set-up last year after impressing for Spurs, scoring on his senior debut in the 4-1 win over Montenegro and earning the match of the match award.

However, Townsend has seen his progress hampered by injuries and is finding regular game time hard to come by under Spurs' new manager Mauricio Pochettino.

He has started just one Premier League match this season, with another appearance off the bench, although the Londoner did make the starting line-up for all three outings in the Europa League thus far.

Hodgson selected Townsend for the games against Norway and Switzerland after he had missed the World Cup with an ankle problem, and again for the upcoming Euro 2016 qualifiers against Estonia and San Marino.

But he admitted the Spurs youth product will find his place in the national team under threat if he stays on the fringes of first-team football at White Hart Lane.

"Pochettino at the moment has decided he doesn't want to use him (Townsend), which is fine by me, but like all players, he runs the risk that the less you play, it does get harder and harder for me to keep faith with players," Hodgson said.

"The players have to understand that for me to pick them, they do need to be impressing in some way because I can't keep faith forever in players who are not getting a game. They've got to get some games.

"I've kept faith with him because of his qualities. I think he deserves another opportunity to show us again this week."