And that chance, he thinks, could come sooner - like Saturday, for instance - rather than later.
"With Beckham and others pulling out we have every chance of all three West Ham lads being involved against Portugal," he says.
"Joe is itching to get into the team and when he is in there, and has a decent performance, they won't find it easy to shift him.
"He has a wonderful desire to show what he can do."
Roger thinks that people around the country - Graeme Sounness, perhaps, excepted - are recognising that his abilities are not just confined to playing fantasy football.
"It is not just his individual skills that mark him out, with him always wanting the ball, but he is strong, he can head a ball, he can tackle...had he not had those qualities he would not have been selected for England in the first place."
Roger hopes that David James and Trevor Sinclair also get a run out, and adds: "David deserves his chance. He is a confident big lad and a terrific keeper - I really hope he plays on Saturday.
"And Trevor has already shown he can play in the England set-up, so long may it continue."
Roger's immediate task, along with Paul Goddard and Glenn Roeder, is to raise the spirits and awareness ahead of the West Brom game next week as the Hammers go in search of their first win.
"We were all disappointed with the last 25 minutes of the Newcastle game and everyone knows that we should have beaten Arsenal after a great performance.
"Against Charlton it was a very different kind of game against a lesser team but we were prepared for them working their socks off against us- and they worked as hard as they possibly could.
"Sometimes goals can blind you to what really happened and we did enough to get a goal during the course of the game.
"But from our point of view the goals were scrappy, with the first one dropping at someone's foot and there being no challenge to get rid of it.
"So we are still looking to get our season up and running and we want a repeat of the Arsenal, not the Charlton, performance.
"After the Arsenal game we were looking to emulate things on Saturday but football is not like that, and we were up against a different style of play."
Roger knows that should Glenn decide to change things there are options to do so, and adds: "Gary Breen and Ian Pearce are getting fitter, and Don Hutchison is coming back. Add to that Steve Lomas, who played 75 minutes in the reserves and another hour in a little practice match today, and we are getting closer.
"Steve is in the perfect frame of mind and there are no problems with him whatsoever."
Meanwhile, Roger, who oversaw West Ham's first reserve win of the season at Wimbledon on Monday night, is full of praise for goalkeeper Glenn Jackson, who made his first appearance for the reserves in that game and kept a clean sheet.
Glenn was playing in the absence of Raimond van der Gouw, who was away, and David Forde, who has joined Steve Bywater on the injured list with a shoulder problem and is expected to be out for around three weeks.
"I was very pleased with Glenn, he made a couple of very good saves," says Roger.