Townsend says Newcastle are his main focus now

(Reuters) – Winger Andros Townsend says his main focus now is to keep struggling Newcastle United in the Premier League even if he hopes the move from Tottenham Hotspur also helps him back into the England squad.

Newcastle signed Townsend, who has played just 67 minutes of league football at Spurs this season, this week on a five-and-a-half year deal for a reported 12 million pounds ($17.18 million).

The 24-year-old was out of favour at Tottenham but will hope to bring goals to the Magpies, who have scored just 25 in 23 league games and are third from bottom in the table.

“To be honest, I’m not thinking about England at all,” Townsend told British media.

“I know if I am playing well for Newcastle — playing well, scoring and creating assists — helping Newcastle get three points and climb up the table, then the England accolades will come with that,” he added.

“First and foremost I’m just focusing on getting back to playing football and getting back to showing people what I can do.”

England won all their qualifiers for this year’s European finals and Townsend was a regular in the squad, scoring against Italy in a friendly last March. He missed the 2014 World Cup in Brazil due to an ankle injury.

Newcastle’s next league match is away to 12th placed Everton on Wednesday.

“Andros feels he has a lot to prove and I can’t wait to see him do that in a Newcastle shirt,” said Newcastle manager Steve McClaren.

“He’s been playing under-21 games, which I have watched, he is fit and will have a week’s training with us, so there’s no problems about him being ready. He will play straight away.”

($1 = 0.6987 pounds)

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru, editing by Alan Baldwin)