Sterling, Lallana and Livermore called-up

In the wake of Theo Walcott joining a few others on the sidelines, and Daniel Sturridge still a bit of a doubt, Roy Hodgson has drafted in a trio of replacements ahead of the world cup qualifier against Ukraine at Wembley tomorrow.

Among these replacements are two uncapped players, one of whom has not even played at U21 level and has just a handful of 1st team appearances at club level behind him too.

Such has been the impression made in the early weeks of the season Hodgson, as an FA.com statement confirmed, had little hesitation in calling up Raheem Sterling and Adam Lallana for the first time and bringing in Jake Livermore, who featured in the friendly with Italy back along...

Given the fact that 5 players have been lost from the original squad the cavalry has been called: 'having lost five players from his original squad, Hodgson has added three players ahead of the first home World Cup qualifier at Wembley.

'Southampton's Adam Lallana, Tottenham Hotspur's Jake Livermore and Liverpool's Raheem Sterling will all join the squad.'

Sterling, courted by Jamaica, is known to Hodgson following his time at Liverpool so the 17-year-old and Southampton's 24-year-old Lallana have been brought in pretty much to take a closer look at them.

As they are 'obvious talents' Hodgson wanted this closer look: 'it is good when you have a chance to invite these young players to be around the team for a short period of time.

'Their early performances for Southampton and Liverpool this season have been very impressive and obviously they are talents.

'With Raheem, I met him a couple of years ago, but in the last two years he has come on in leaps and bounds. In the opening matches where he has played, the reports on him have been very good.

'This was an opportunity just to bring him into the group. I will make it clear to him that I am not bringing him in with a view to playing him now, I am bringing him in because there might be a time in the future when he will not only feature as a substitute, he might be breaking into the team.'

I do not think that there is any harm in bringing both into the squad at all.

You would think, given the fact that this has happened, that Hodgson does have some thoughts about using them down the line so why not give them a bit of time with the squad for the next 24-hours or so?

It is unlikely that either will feature against the Ukraine tomorrow but even with the withdrawals that we have seen, before the Moldova game and after, you would expect us to have enough to see off the Ukraine really.

With that in mind 'if' we are in a comfortably position he may well just decide to throw one, or both, on at some point at Wembley if they do enough during the intervening training sessions...

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