Reds set to restore big names

Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson will most likely drop all the players who performed so badly in midweek for tomorrow’s Barclays Premier League game at home to Sunderland.

Hodgson made 11 changes from the side which lost at Manchester United last weekend but his understrength team embarrassingly lost to League Two Northampton in the Carling Cup.

It seems unlikely any of those players will be retained as the likes of Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Joe Cole and Jose Reina return.

Forward Dirk Kuyt may make a comeback after a quicker-than-expected recovery from a shoulder injury earlier this month but defender Fabio Aurelio (Achilles) is still injured.

Provisional squad: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Skrtel, Konchesky, Poulsen, Gerrard, Rodriguez, Meireles, Cole, Torres, Jones, Agger, Pacheco, Babel, Jovanovic, Lucas, Ngog, Krygiakos, Kuyt.