Norwich City prospect Todd Cantwell would love the opportunity to stake a claim to be part of England’s tilt at the re-scheduled European Championships in 2021.

Cantwell has made an impressive breakthrough during the Canaries’ Premier League return with six league goals in 29 appearances before football’s shutdown in response to the global pandemic.

The Dereham-bred attacking midfielder also earned a first England Under-21 call up earlier this season alongside club mates Max Aarons and Ben Godfrey.

With this summer’s senior European Championships now postponed 12 months Cantwell, appearing on Talksport on Friday morning, was asked for his thoughts on potentially gatecrashing Gareth Southgate’s plans when football does resume.

“You can’t get too distracted as a player. I always try and focus on the next game and take it as it comes,” he said. “But naturally hopefully it gives me more chance to develop and more chances to become a better footballer, which I felt I had done recently.

“I have really enjoyed playing in the Premier League this year.

“I felt like each game, each training session I am becoming better and given another year then hopefully I might be in a much better position to fight for that.”

Cantwell was pressed on whether football should return in the coming weeks and where it leaves relegation-threatened City.

“Most players and staff at the club want to finish the season,” he said. “I definitely feel that way. We have come up in the right way and if it wasn’t to be and we go down then there has to be a right way to do that as well. We have been very true to ourselves this year. We haven’t really changed for anyone. Some people will say that was foolish and others will say we have made mistakes and, yes, we have a lot of young lads playing in the Premier League for the first time and if we do go down then we want to go down with pride.

“Hopefully there is never a season like this one again, and we genuinely believe if we play the games we can get some more points on the season and I would like to see then what would happen in a fair way, rather than any other way.”

Cantwell appeared on the Talksport morning show with England Lionesses’ star Lucy Bronze to talk about the Three Lions’ players taking part in an FA-hosted Fifa gaming tournament. That comes after Cantwell had represented Norwich in the recent Quaranteam gaming event.

The youngster will also be City’s representative at the inaugural ePremier League Invitational tournament.

Among the other players currently scheduled to compete in the tournament are Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Ryan Fredericks (West Ham United), Diogo Jota (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) and Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace).

The final is set to feature in a live show on Sky Sports on Saturday April 25 with the prize fund being donated to the #PlayersTogether initiative, which was created by Premier League players to generate funds for the National Health Service.

The full line-up will be confirmed ahead of the draw for the tournament, which takes place on Monday April 20, with the opening matches starting from the following day onwards.