Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson admits he needs some of his senior players for their Europa League clash with FK Rabotnicki.
Players involved in the latter stages in South Africa have not returned to training while England's Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Glen Johnson only got back this week and have missed pre-season camp in Switzerland.
Hodgson has been advised that those players should not be considered for the trip to Skopje but the 62-year-old - who launched Fulham's run to the final at the same stage of the competition last season - wants to find middle ground.
Hodgson told the club's website: "It's a little bit of a fight with them to some extent, in order to try and get them to free up more senior players, because their view is very clear that all of these players who are coming back to Melwood just after the World Cup shouldn't play in either of the two games.
"My point of view is that I want to go through in the competition and I might need some of these players, so there's a lot of compromise.
"I fully respect their opinion and in an ideal world I wouldn't even for one minute discuss it with them and I would take it at face value.
"If our first game was on August 15, I'd take it on face value that they don't want me to use these players in any friendly matches, and instead continue working with them and build up their level of fitness.
"But of course we've got official matches now and that's the difference."
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