Hodgson ponders gambling on Gerrard for European qualifier

The 62-year-old will decide today whether the England captain, and his international team-mates Jamie Carragher, Glen Johnson and new signing Joe Cole, should be included for the third qualifying round tie in Macedonia against Rabotnicki.

Liverpool's medical team have advised the Englishman it is too soon to use those players who were on World Cup duty after just over a week back in pre-season training.

Hodgson has to weigh up whether it is more risky to leave the task of getting through into the competition proper in the hands of a largely reserve side who have not scored a goal in two warm-up matches.

But if he does select the likes of Gerrard he will at least respect their stature in the game by naming them in the starting line-up rather than keeping them on the bench for an emergency.

"I don't know what to do at this stage," he said.

"I will have to liaise with them and (head of sports science) Peter Brukner and make a decision by Tuesday on what sort of team I can put out. It is going to be a difficult discussion between myself and Peter because his feeling is we shouldn't use any of them and I am going to be tempted to say I want to use quite a few of them.

"The only players I will take will be the ones that I definitely think will play a valuable part in the game.

"If we are talking about senior players, it would be players prepared to start the game.

"I would not take Steven Gerrard there to play for the last 10 minutes as a substitute."

The recognised first-team players set to feature on Thursday irrespective of Hodgson's discussions with his medical staff will be midfielders Lucas Leiva and Alberto Aquilani and forwards David Ngog and new signing Milan Jovanovic.

Liverpool's two Argentina internationals Javier Mascherano and Maxi Rodriguez have returned to training after their post-World Cup holiday.