Is this the ideal opportunity to showcase this young trio?

Liverpool face Northampton in the Carling Cup tomorrow night and Reds manager Roy Hodgson is expecting some of the fringe players to step up to the plate:

“There’s a responsibility on those who replace the big-name players like Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Pepe Reina and Jamie Carragher to name but four. And to be fair they’ve shown themselves capable of taking on that burden in a couple of European matches already. As we saw in the last game against Steaua Bucharest, Jay Spearing was arguably one of the best players on the field. If you never give him a chance, how do you know that?”

My thoughts exactly Roy: a home tie against the Cobblers is an ideal opportunity not only to give fringe first teamers an opportunity to shine but also some youngsters too. Of course, some caution is needed going into a game against any lower division team, and you need to put a team out that is capable of winning the game, but I can’t see a reason why we can’t put in some of our most talented youngsters into the mix.

Roy has already stated that David Ngog, Ryan Babel, Dani Pacheco, Martin Kelly, Danny Wilson and Brad Jones will play some part in the match. So who would be best to play in the other vacant positions? Most likely Wilson will start at left back in place of Paul Konchesky while Soto Kyrgiakos and Daniel Agger will probably take up the centre back roles. This still leaves however three places in midfield up for grabs. With Pacheco and Babel either filling the wide roles or in the position behind Ngog, who should fill the vacant positions left by Steven Gerrard, Christian Poulsen and Joe Cole?

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