West Brom duo challenged to target England squad by Tony Pulis

The Baggies boss reckons both players stand a chance of getting into Gareth Southgate's squad this season and dangled the carrot of Russia 2018 in front of his players in a hope it would boost their domestic performances.

Both summer signings have already won England caps. Gibbs has 10 under his belt, but hasn't played for the national side since November 2015.

Rodriguez's solitary cap came in November 2013 and the former Southampton striker would have gone to the 2014 World Cup were it not for a cruel knee injury that season.

Albion already have Jake Livermore in the England squad, and Pulis reckons two more of his players could join him there.

"There's people outside the group that could force their way in (to the England squad) over the coming months," said Pulis.

"We've had outstanding performances from Gibbs since he's come into the football club and Jay has been fantastic as well.

"I think Gareth will have an open mind. There's more than two thirds of the season to go, you get injuries, loss of form, anything can happen in the season.

"You've got that time to impress, especially the England players or whoever goes to the World Cup, and make sure you do impress."

Pulis has pedigree getting players back into international contention. Last season he won a bet with Nacer Chadli that he would get him back in the Belgium squad, and there were similar recalls for Scotland's Matt Phillips and England's Livermore.

This season, Grzegorz Krychowiak has been recalled to the Poland squad for this round of international fixtures.

And the Baggies boss is predicting a healthy Albion contingent in Russia next summer.

"Chadli's already there with Belgium so we've got one lad who's going to be playing over there," he said.

"Then you've got the situation with the Celts, the Irish, the Welsh and the Scots could all still get involved. So we've got that. England is just a small part of it."