MICHAEL Ricketts has exceeded all expectations this season - even his own!

With less than a third of the Premier League programme played, the Reebok hit-man is already in striking distance of the goals target he set himself after hitting 24 in last season's promotion push.

He is currently the top scoring Englishman in the Premiership lists and, after hitting his 12th in stunning style at Spurs on Monday, he is being touted by some for England honours.

From Walsall to the World Cup in just two short years ..?

It sounds an ambitious, some would say outrageous, suggestion but with Sven Goran Eriksson among an admiring audience at White Hart Lane, where he bamboozled Ledley King before threading a powerful left-footer through the eye of a needle, there is good reason for Ricketts to focus on the Three Lions as he ponders his international future.

Jamaica and the USA have always been the realistic options as he considered pinning his colours to one of three national masts but Sam Allardyce's long-held view that he should sit back and think of England now appears to be his wisest course of action.

With the likes of Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler, Emile Heskey and Teddy Sheringham almost certainly in the frame for Korea and Japan and Andy Cole and Kevin Phillips staking strong claims, there would seem to be no place for the Reebok Rocket.

But ...if Eriksson follows a particular route by favouring the all-Liverpool combination of Owen and Heskey - and there is evidence to suggest he does - then who better to understudy for Heskey?

Ricketts is in the mould and in the mood.

This time last year, when he was making the football world sit up and take notice, Allardyce valued his £400,000 summer steal at £7m-£8m.

What price Ricketts now? Seven goals in his last seven games against top class opposition and 10 so far in the Premiership have established the surprise package of the First Division as a feared and highly respected force at the highest level.

"I don't think there's a better striker in the Premiership!" the Wanderers' boss claims.

As for Ricketts himself - he refuses to quote a figure but asked if his target is in sight, he answers: "I'm close ... very close indeed!"