Rabotnicki, 1-0 up from the first leg against Mika, earned a glamour tie with Liverpool with a goalless draw in the return game in Armenia yesterday.

With fellow Macedonians FK Teteks also progressing last night, it has meant the two legs of Liverpool’s game have been switched with Hodgson’s men now heading to Skopje for the first game on Thursday with the return at Anfield on August 5.

While Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Milan Jovanovic have been non-playing members of the training camp in Switzerland, World Cup quartet Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Glen Johnson and Daniel Agger have been training at Melwood the last few days.

The 25-man squad will apply for both legs of the tie, although changes will be allowed ahead of the final qualifying round next month should Liverpool progress.

Hodgson, though, believes he is in a difficult position by the need for the Anfield outfit to start their season so early following last season’s seventh-place finish.

“The sports scientists have a very clear idea of when players come back training after a World Cup and a three-week break how much work they need to do physically before you can start throwing them into competitive matches,” said the manager.

“They tell me it would be wrong if I look into using these players that early if we want to use them throughout the season.

“If we don’t throw them in then we don’t have the players with experience to play the games so it is a cleft stick at the end of the day.

“You lose lose. You lose if you don’t play them and you lose if you do play them.”

Scottish youngster Danny Wilson followed Joe Cole in moving to Liverpool this week, and Hodgson does not expect that to be the last of his recruitment before the Premier League season begins, with a left-back and backup striker the priorities.

“We need to strengthen at both ends and we need to have some very good young players that are really worth working with for the future so we can hopefully start producing a few more Gerrards, Carraghers, Owens and Fowlers,” he said.

“We need some coming in from that end but we need to strengthen at the top end as well and someone like Joe Cole is very important in that respect and I hope he won’t be the last one and we can get at least a couple more in before the season starts.”