It may be nearly 40 years since Bill Shankly declared the domestic league campaign as Liverpool FC’s “bread and butter”, but the maxim remains true to this day.
Just ask Roy Hodgson. The circumstances may be somewhat different – Shankly’s comments came in the wake of a championship and UEFA Cup double – but it is with one eye firmly on the Premier League that the Anfield manager approaches tonight’s Europa League qualifying play-off first leg against Turkish cup winners Trabzonspor.
That Liverpool is even in the competition in the first place is testament to the travails of the previous campaign that saw Hodgson parachuted in to the top flight.
Of course, having guided Fulham to the final of the Europa League in May, the 62-year-old has recent experience of the effects a lengthy European run can have on domestic efforts.
And with Monday’s testing trip to title-chasing Manchester City sandwiched between both games against Trabzonspor, Hodgson admits Premier League points will take precedent over Continental aspirations.
It’s why skipper Steven Gerrard is among several players that started Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Arsenal who will miss out this evening, with Javier Mascherano nursing a calf strain and Daniel Agger yet to fully recover from concussion suffered at the weekend.
For Hodgson, the game therefore represents an early opportunity to gauge the strength in depth of his squad.
“You always have to have one eye on the Premier League games,” says the Liverpool manager. “We have got players who have played 90 minutes last week, 90 minutes on Sunday, maybe asked to play 90 minutes on Thursday, then 90 minutes on Monday, then 90 minutes on Thursday, then 90 minutes on Sunday.
“If you ask 11 players to do that then you are asking a lot of them. We have already lost two and I’m not sure how many more we are going to lose along the way. But we have a squad of players to deal with that.
“Hopefully a club of our stature has more than 11 players capable of playing at a top level, and it’s going to be up to me to make certain I choose the right ones for the games and I don’t get anybody into a situation that, thanks to being overplayed, they miss a lot more games.”
Indeed, Liverpool are in the midst of a busy spell of five matches in 15 days in which Hodgson is seeking to navigate a safe passage to the group stages of the Europa League and avoid a repeat of his players’ stuttering top-flight start of the previous campaign.
However, the hangover of the World Cup continues to force the manager into a series of creative compromises while attempting to prepare his players.
“That’s the nature of the business,” says Hodgson, who has confirmed Mike Kelly has joined from Fulham as the club’s new goalkeeping coach.
“If you take a job at a top Premier League club like Liverpool, you know a lot of things aren’t going to be ideal.
“You don’t get the players back when you want them, it’s spasmodic balancing who has done enough training and who hasn’t, and the season comes upon you so quickly.
“Hopefully with a bit of luck we can come through this period. I don’t think we had that luck in the first game maybe that will come in the games to follow.
“You do need a bit of luck to survive this period before you have stabilized things to your satisfaction.”
One player eager for an outing is Fernando Torres. The Spaniard made his first Liverpool appearance since April as a late substitute on Sunday, but is likely to remain on the bench this evening.
“Fernando is very keen,” says Hodgson. “If we decide he should start the game he would be ready to do so. He’s training and working hard and when I ask him how he’s doing he says he’s fine.
“Could he play on Thursday and against City? I don’t know if he is up to two games in four days.
“I would think he could do that though. He’s worked very hard since he rejoined with us. He has worked hard with the physical conditioning people.
“But what we must remember with Fernando, Pepe Reina, Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel are they are doing something of a pre-season with games going on around them. We have to not be blinded by the fact they are three to four weeks behind.”
Christian Poulsen, though, could be in line for a debut following his move from Juventus last week.
“He has had a pre-season with Juventus,” says Hodgson. “He started shortly after us.
“But the Italian clubs, because they start their season later on, they start by taking the players into the mountains and running them into the ground.
“Then three weeks before the season starts, they get the ball out, do some tactical work and play some games.
“Christian has done his running but hasn’t done much playing. The only question is whether he is capable of playing a match.”
