Adam Lallana is fit again, but how does Brendan Rodgers fit him in Liverpool's team with Daniel Sturridge, Mario Balotelli and Raheem Sterling

Adam Lallana has recovered from injury setback in pre-season

Former Southampton man is one of many new signings at Anfield

Brendan Rodgers also brought in Mario Balotelli and Lazar Markovic

Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling remain as key figures in side

Steven Gerrard is midfield anchor with Jordan Henderson ahead of him

‘Nice problem to have’ is the usual cliche thrown out by managers when they have a surplus of ego-centric stars to mesh into a team.

Perhaps Bill Shankly put it better when he said the biggest problem in football management was keeping the players happy - ‘the players who aren’t in your first 11,’ he added. 

And Shankly never had to deal with the Champions League squad sizes that Brendan Rodgers is managing. 

Undoubtedly, given the lack of depth in the Liverpool squad last season, it is a ‘nice problem to have,’ for Rodgers, especially with the Champions League campaign beginning next week. 

That said, just how does the Liverpool manager squeeze Mario Balotelli, Daniel Sturridge, Rickie Lambert, Raheem Sterling, Lazar Markovic, Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana, who is now fit, into the same team?

He won’t, of course, unless he wants to end up like Ossie Ardiles who sent out his famous five of attacking players - Jurgen Klinsmann, Darren Anderton, Nicky Barmby, Ilie Dumitrescu and Teddy Sheringham - for Tottenham in 1994. How pretty it looked in August; Ardiles was sacked in October.

Let’s take it as a given that Rodgers wants to get Balotelli, Sturridge and Sterling on to the pitch and work from there. 

That would suggest - and the game at Tottenham backs this up - that his preferred way of playing will be the diamond, with Sterling behind the front two, requiring Lallana to play a little deeper and narrower alongside Jordan Henderson in midfield.

It’s a role he filled at Southampton, though with more licence to go forward. Steven Gerrard would anchor the midfield leaving Markovic, as the new boy, and Coutinho to miss out. 

And yet Coutinho impressed as an attacking midfielder last season, so if Rodgers want to revert to him playing behind a lone striker - presumably Balotelli - then Sturridge will be the man forced wide, with Sterling resuming a wide left role.

Rodgers claims Balotelli will play where he’s told but it would be a brave man to play him out wide, given the utter necessity of tracking back in that position. 

Roberto Mancini tried it at Manchester City and gave up. Henderson and Gerrard would anchor in the above formation meaning no place for Lambert, Lallana or Markovic.

But Rodgers is a man whose tactical blueprint is derived from the likes of Marcelo Bielsa, Johan Cruyff and Louis van Gaal so a 3-4-3 formation must also be a possibility. 

That would allow him to play the front three as above and give him a midfield with Markovic and Lallana as wide men. 

It looks extraordinarily ambitious and asks a lot of those two defensively. But Rodgers is not a man afraid to take risks. And we can safely assume, that unlike Ardiles, he will be given time to find the best combination and the right balance.