Everton defender Phil Jagielka has urged national manager Roy Hodgson to pick his strongest team in friendlies against Spain and France next month.

The 33-year-old has backed Hodgson to play his best players for the Euro2016 lead-up games irrespective of the wishes of the club managers.

"If we don't pick strong teams then the friendlies are pointless," said Jagielka, who captained the team in the 3-0 win over Lithuania at the LFF Stadium on Monday night.

"If we pick strong teams then we probably put ourselves under a bit of pressure, but we need to go out and play well with the formula and gameplans we have been putting together during this qualifying campaign, and see how it stacks up against the so-called better teams of Europe.

"We need to see where we stand. Hopefully we play well in those games and it gives us a bit more confidence looking forward to boarding the plane to France. Roy said he decided to have a look at a few players back in 2013 and changed the squad around and all sorts, but he's on record saying he's not going with the same sort of experimental team this time.

"He'll probably play his strongest team, if not pretty close to it, in both games. That should give you a good idea of how he is looking at these friendlies and how we go about it. I think he'd gone half-and-half on the Friday and Tuesday nights for the Chile and Germany games, probably trying to appease club managers and look at players and things like that, but maybe this time the manager is going to have to be a little bit more selfish and plan for France, even before Christmas."