Southend-born Dominic Iorfa trains with full England squad

Iorfa, who spent four years with Southend United as a youngster, had been training with England’s under-21 team in Burton before being asked to work with the full squad by manager Roy Hodgson.

Luke Hobbs, Iorfa’s former youth team coach at Roots Hall, said he has not been surprised by the youngster’s progress since he teamed up Wolverhampton Wanderers.

“Dominic always had a great attitude and was a very talented boy so it’s fantastic to see him doing so well,” said Hobbs, who now works at Arsenal.

“He was playing for his local side in one of the junior cup finals at Roots Hall when he was scouted at the end of the under-12 season for him.

“He was initially a striker but after about 12 to 18 months we decided to make him a defender and he really excelled there, so it’s not a surprise to see him making such good progress.”

Iorfa’s talent also saw him identified as a “gold” player which led to him attending extra training sessions with the Shrimpers.

Highly-rated Arsenal youngster Stephy Mavididi, midfielder Isaac Hayden who is currently on loan at Hull City from the Gunners and current Shrimpers midfielder Jack Bridge were also in the group.

And Hobbs remains thrilled by the progress they have made.

“At that time we identified a collection of gold players, which included Dominic and they had an extra training session a week,” said Hobbs.

“I was the head coach and we did a lot of technical work on them.

“We also had Lyle Della Verde, who went to Fulham and Glen Kamara who went to Arsenal, so there were a lot of really good players around at that time, including Daniel Bentley as well.

“I’m really proud of how well they’ve all done and sure they will all keep working hard to try to get even more success.”

Iorfa, a former St Thomas More School pupil, left Blues in 2013 and has now made 28 appearances for Wolves.

His dad, also called Dominic, played 17 times for Southend in the mid-1990s during his own career and still lives in the town.