Hodgson to retain faith in youngsters

Hodgson has enjoyed a relatively stress-free start to life as Three Lions boss.

His willingness to engage with England's younger-age teams, including the Under-17s, which he spoke to before this week's 3-2 defeat by Italy in Burton, makes a pleasant change from the stand-offish regime of Fabio Capello.

However, now judgment will be made swiftly and failure to reach the 2014 World Cup in Brazil will prompt calls for Hodgson to quit, even though his contract runs until 2016.

The 65-year-old is not going the conservative route, though, and the two youngest members of his EURO 2012 party will be retained when he unveils his squad.

Yet Oxlade-Chamberlain's omission from the Arsenal starting line-up at Stoke on this weekend merely underlines the major problem Hodgson is facing.

Of the 23 men who were on duty for the Three Lions at EURO 2012, for instance, only 12 started for their clubs last weekend.

Jermain Defoe was the only striker with Steven Gerrard and Ashley Young the men on duty from Hodgson's midfield department, while Rob Green's move to QPR does not look quite so good now former Brazil star Julio Cesar has also become part of the Loftus Road revolution.

Given Sunderland new boy Adam Johnson was denied a debut by the elements, only 13 of the 18 players Hodgson selected for the friendly with Italy in Berne earlier this month were chosen by their club managers.

It creates a complicated picture as Hodgson pieces together the two squads into some form of cohesive group for those matches against Moldova in Kishinev on September 7 and Ukraine at Wembley four days later.

Hodgson had already pledged to restore most of his old guard, who he left out of the Berne triumph.

However, since he made that statement, Wayne Rooney has been ruled out with a badly gashed thigh and John Terry missed Chelsea's win over Newcastle with a neck injury, although reports since suggest the former England skipper will feature.

Rooney's absence will be keenly felt as Danny Welbeck and Andy Carroll were confined to cameo roles at the weekend.

The latter man's future also needs to be resolved, although at least this will have been done by the time Hodgson's squad reports for duty on Monday.

Hodgson will gain further solace from the knowledge one of England's better recent performances came against Sweden, when both Welbeck and Carroll scored in a 3-2 win.

However, it is hardly an ideal situation and evidently not confined to one area of England's squad.