This season has seen Liverpool take real strides under the management of Brendan Rodgers, with the Northern Irishman helping to lead the team to their strongest challenge for the Champions League spots for a few campaigns since their absence from the competition. Playing his and the club’s traditional brand of football, the former Swansea man has helped to capture the imagination at Anfield again – becoming warmly thought of in the red half of the city.

Unlike what Rodgers is quickly becoming, Roy Hodgson wasn’t the most popular man at Anfield by any distance during his short spell at the club – but with a wealth of home-grown talent impressing at Liverpool in their impressive season right now the England manager could go some way to appeasing the fans which he failed to before in the near future. Aiming to please supporters of clubs isn’t exactly a priority of Hodgson’s, but at this moment in time he could do considerably worse than looking towards his old team on Merseyside to make up a more than decent proportion of his team come the summer for the upcoming World Cup.

A captain of both club and country, Steven Gerrard is the obvious point to start when assessing the national team credentials of Liverpool’s current squad. Being deployed in a deeper role than that of his prime allows Gerrard to exploit his obvious ability to dictate a game and set the tempo, whilst also reducing his need to operate in the tiresome box-to-box role which he is less capable of doing now.

Someone who can and continues to compensate for Gerrard’s changed role is his fellow teammate Jordan Henderson, who is quite possibly England’s most balanced midfielder at this time – though a master of no trades, he’s a jack of many. His defensive contribution, willingness to track back and role in pressing makes him a manager’s dream, whilst his ability to recycle the ball has improved considerably to compliment his bursts forward to provide a threat from deep. Henderson provides the shuttling kind of option alongside Gerrard which gives a bit of protection to the latter, keeping him from getting particularly fatigued during difficult games – an obvious benefit in the heat of Brazil.

Playing Gerrard in the deep-lying playmaker type manner reduces the need for a player with a similar role like Michael Carrick in the starting eleven, other than to maintain someone with better ball retention in the midfield – perhaps freeing up space for an alternative type of performer alongside him. The issue with this is that England lack a good destructive player with mobility in the mould of say Lucas Leiva (Gareth Barry is the closest but his lack of mobility was massively exposed in South Africa 2010), the obvious compliment to a midfield of both the captain and Henderson as at Liverpool, leaving probably Carrick, Jack Wilshere or even Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (as he has proved capable of doing) to fill in the final central role – though the crucial thing is striking a balance.

The other less favourable alternative is to stick with the two in midfield and rely on Wayne Rooney to provide the extra body in the middle of the park to avoid the pair being overrun. This is something which has happened to them on occasion this season when not at their best, resulting in a failure to impose as much (if any) controlling influence on the game as they intend to. A trio is probably the best way to go considering that, making it a more dependable set of players as well as giving England’s best striker more freedom to exert his attacking talents.

Whilst Rooney is England’s most talented attacking player, it’s almost impossible to deny that Daniel Sturridge is the most on form one right now. He has kept pace with Luis Suárez in the goal-scoring charts, going from being little more than an outcast a year ago to a key man in a highly ambitious club. A scorer of important goals as well as a lot of them, the former Chelsea man has thrived under Brendan Rodgers at Anfield – embarking on an incredible streak which has seen him score in the most consecutive league games in Liverpool’s rich history. If his dancing leaves a bit to desire his exploits in the final third do not, and bar an injury his inclusion is an absolute certainty.

One of his partners in attack who will be looking to make himself an equally major thought in Hodgson’s head is Raheem Sterling who, like Sturridge, has grown into a dynamic attacker of real importance at club level. Sterling’s ability to make diagonal runs and expose the spaces left by both Suárez and Sturridge makes him a real danger in breaking the opposition’s back line and, with Rooney possessing a similar trait to the Uruguayan in how he drifts around in front of the defence, the potential for that trio to start together could be a deadly and flowing one for England.

Capable of playing both on the left and right, as well as having a considerably decent work ethic, Sterling would represent a fine deputy for the injured Theo Walcott should Hodgson maintain his preference for some form of dynamic winger within the squad. The improvement in his end-product has been significantly noticeable this campaign compared to the time after his break-through, something which cannot be said about the energetic but embarrassingly inefficient Andros Townsend who is a possible (though unwarranted) alternative for the Liverpool man. His lack of much experience for England may prove detrimental to his hopes of starting in Brazil assuming his inclusion happens, although he has shown a real maturity since breaking through at Anfield at the start of last season.

Jon Flanagan deserves a brief mention as another encouraging youngster for his refreshingly positive performances in the last couple of months too, coincidentally in the absence of his English compatriot Glen Johnson, though to suggest he will make any kind of an appearance in Brazil is speculative to say the very least – especially with the better and much more experienced (albeit slightly troubled) Kyle Walker as well as the makeshift full-back Chris Smalling.

What this leaves then are five players in Johnson, Gerrard, Henderson, Sterling and Sturridge who would have certainly have a genuine right to feel aggrieved should they have a free summer in this World Cup year. The latter four of those have been on extremely good form for the majority of the season, whilst Johnson represents one of Hodgson’s two main right-back options throughout his tenure as manager of the national team (alongside Walker).

The advantage of these players being in form is complimented by the obvious beneficiary of them playing alongside each other week in week out, a familiarity which should not be underestimated – something which nations such as Spain have demonstrated as a real bonus. La Roja do have a much more designated style in comparison to England’s lack of one of course, making it a bit more relevant, but with the majority of their players representing either Barcelona or Real Madrid it creates a situation where the players are used to performing with each other on a regular basis.

This regularity could help to go some way towards filling in the gap of fluidity in this England side, something which leads to a raft of disjointed performances with acts of sporadic brilliance few and far between. Whilst there are obvious absentees (such as Coutinho and Suárez) of real importance from Liverpool, the Three Lions do have options that would have the ability to at least somewhat replicate the style which Rodgers has moulded his club into. It’s easier said than done of course, adapting to a way of playing which the other players may not be used to, but the idea is that by incorporating a handful of inform players used to it that there isn’t much change to be done and to create a more seamless transition within the rest of the team.

It is this reproduction of the style which is perhaps the bigger issue as opposed to the players themselves, and whether a pragmatic and conservative manager like Hodgson would be up for utilising his squad in a similar way as Rodgers has is a doubt – especially in an international environment where there is often a slower, more controlled feel to the game.

International managers are often accused of favouring trusted personnel and big names over performances, making it somewhat hard to tell whether all of the players will end up being (let alone starting) at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil at this moment in time – but on their form right now it isn’t entirely inconceivable to suggest that Liverpool players could have a prominent role to play in England’s squad this summer.