Nathaniel Chalobah is one step closer to realising his dream of playing for England.

The Watford midfielder was on the cusp of making his debut last season before suffering a serious knee injury.

Now he has been included in Gareth Southgate's squad for the Nations League fixtures against Spain and Croatia.

"It has been tough," Chalobah admits. "I hadn't really had many injuries before and the injury was more of a freakish accident anyway. It just happened. It's not one you normally see in football. I heard it's more of a skier's injury. I was just unlucky.

"It was tough to take at the time and obviously I was thinking, 'OK, let me try and get fit for the World Cup'. But it didn't happen. The rehab process was a lot different to usual. I won't go into too many details.

"I had an operation and couldn't bend my leg for a few weeks, which meant I lost a lot of muscle and then I had to let the tendon heal and so on and so forth. It was a tough process, to be fair, but one that can I say I got over now, hopefully."