Hodgson today said he would not risk damaging the club's Premier League campaign for the sake of progress in Europe. The Reds face either the Macedonian side Rabotnicki or Armenia's Mika in their Europa League third-round qualifier, with the first leg to be played at Anfield on 29 July and the return on 5 August.
"Possibly none of our World Cup players will play in the early Europa Cup games if we listen to the advice of the sports science people," Hodgson said. "They are telling me we would be very foolhardy to use players who have only been training for three or four days on the back of the World Cup that early on because that will affect us further on down the road.
"If we feel we are endangering our chances of doing well in the Premier League by risking players in the early stage of the Europa League, it will be a decision the club will have to take. You have to follow the guidance."
Liverpool's England contingent of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Glen Johnson, Denmark's Daniel Agger and Slovakia's Martin Skrtel will return to individual programmes at the club's Melwood training ground in the coming days while a squad made up largely of reserves are still at their Switzerland training camp.
The Argentina duo of Javier Mascherano and Maxi RodrÃguez are due back a week tomorrow while Spain's World Cup winners Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina, and the Dutch beaten finalists Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel, will not return until after the first leg.
"Their [medical staff's] advice is to not use these players," added Hodgson, who will have his new signing Milan Jovanovic available. "If we have enough players to put a team out without them is another question. Things can happen before 29 July.
"We will not be speculating on that and there is no point in me making predictions of what the team will be like for that game. The sports science people are advising me not to use the players from the World Cup. Therefore new signings would become important for the Europa League."
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