Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists they are in the Europa League to win it and they arrive in Linz “to compete, not to give opportunities”. On Thursday the Reds take on LASK as they return to a competition in which their last appearance was the 2016 final defeat to Sevilla in the German’s first season at the club. Since then Liverpool have won the Champions League and reached two other finals and lifted the Premier League, the Club World Cup, the FA Cup and Carabao Cup. As it stands the Europa League is the only major trophy Klopp has not won in his near-eight years at Anfield and he wants to add that missing silverware to his honour role. That means fans who were hoping to see exciting fringe talents like youngster Ben Doak, Harvey Elliott and new signing Ryan Gravenberch may have to wait for now. “We are here to compete, not to give opportunities,” he said. “My first year I thought the Europa League was a bit too much for us until we got to the final. We had to fly to Russia, played on a frozen pitch in Sion. “That was a different squad. We were not ready and we came through somehow. I don’t think we were exceptional until the quarter-final, semi-final. “It is a different time, a different team. We are better prepared. We enjoy it more to be here because we had no clue at that time what to expect. “We have to be motivated and we are excited to play in the Europa League. I didn’t watch the Champions League (this week), I didn’t miss the anthem.” None of the 2016 final squad remain at Anfield with Joe Gomez – who was 18 at the time but out injured – the only current player to have played in the Europa League for Liverpool. But while there have been significant alterations to the playing staff this summer the core of that trophy-winning band are still together and Klopp’s side are favourites to win the competition. However, captain Virgil van Dijk brushed off the expectations. “It’s a reflection of the world we live in at the moment, it’s from one extreme to the other,” he said. “We have to just stay calm and level-headed, there are so many games to play and twists and turns to happen. “We know we had a good start but there are so many things still we need to improve. We need to stay calm. “Everyone else from the outside world will say things but we should not worry and think about it.” Van Dijk has had to watch from the sidelines for the last two matches due to suspension but he has been impressed with the way his team-mates have gone about their business. And he is not the only one who has been heartened. Klopp added: “Virgil is right. He did not play now twice and you can see something is growing. “We were late (arriving in Linz) today and it wasn’t our fault and we were waiting around and you see they enjoy spending time with each other.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Next season I’ll be back – Emma Raducanu out for rest of year through injury Majority of Spain’s World Cup winners reach agreement to end boycott – CSD boss Van Dijk dunks and Zlatan shows off – Wednesday’s sporting social

Yevgeny Prigozhin turned the Wagner Group from a shadowy band of mercenaries into a feared military powerhouse operating across multiple countries on three continents. Now that he is gone, the future of the group is anyone's guess.

Several current and former elected officials – including Georgia’s two former Republican senators – are on a list of prominent Donald Trump allies who narrowly avoided criminal charges in the state’s sweeping racketeering case against him. The unsealed report from a special purpose grand jury tasked with investigating Trumpworld attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results revealed a much wider picture of the subsequent criminal case against the former president and his 18 co-defendants. That report – the product of an eight-month investigation separate from an Atlanta grand jury’s indictment – revealed that grand jurors recommend criminal charges against 39 people for nearly 160 counts of violations against more than a dozen state laws. The list includes Georgia’s two former Republican US senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, but neither of them were charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in a sweeping racketeering indictment. How did Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler – who were sitting members of Congress during the time of the alleged crimes – end up in the crosshairs of the sprawling investigation? Mr Perdue was first elected to office in 2014 and lost his bid for re-election in a closely watched runoff against Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff in the smoldering aftermath of the 2020 election. Ms Loeffler – who was appointed to the seat in 2019 following the retirement of her predecessor – lost a runoff election to Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock. Following Mr Trump’s election loss, all eyes were on Georgia for two races that would determine the balance of party power in Congress – high-stakes elections in which the GOP campaigns were intertwined with Mr Trump’s spurious attempts to claim victory in a state he decisively lost. On the campaign trail leading up to the runoff election day on 5 January, 2021, both candidates promoted their Trump links, refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory, and called for the resignation of Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was baselessly accused of election “failures” following Mr Trump’s loss in the state. One week after the 2020 election, Governor Brian Kemp issued a joint statement with Lt Governor Geoff Duncan and the state’s House Speaker David Ralston – all Republicans – declaring that any effort to reverse the results through the legislature would lead to “endless litigation.” At a fundraiser on 3 December 2020, Mr Perdue urged the governor to summon lawmakers back to the state Capitol for a special session to overturn Mr Trump’s loss. Two days later, then-President Trump called on Mr Kemp to order a special legislative session among state lawmakers to invalidate the election’s outcome. Mr Kemp refused. At a Georgia rally for the senate candidates that night, Mr Trump baselessly alleged the outcome was manipulated and stolen from him. The governor said that Mr Trump asked him to order an audit of signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes; audits and full hand recounts of the state’s election results repeatedly confirmed Mr Biden’s victory, which also was affirmed and defended by the state’s Republican election officials. “Your people are refusing to do what you ask,” Mr Trump said on Twitter at the time, addressing Mr Kemp. “What are they hiding? At least immediately ask for a Special Session of the Legislature. That you can easily, and immediately, do.” Mr Perdue allegedly spoke daily with Mr Trump before the special election, listening to him unload his gripes, frustrations and bogus allegations surrounding Georgia’s election results and Mr Raffensperger’s refusals to engage Mr Trump. On 2 January, 2021, Mr Trump spoke with Mr Raffensperger on an hour-long conference call in which then-President Trump urged Georgia’s top elections official to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss. That call is central to the indictment facing Mr Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia, as well as a separate indictment from the US Department of Justice surrounding the former president’s attempts to subvert the election’s outcome. Mr Perdue’s term in Congress ended the next day, leaving his seat vacant three days before Congress convened to certify the presidential election results. “Senator Perdue still owes my wife an apology for all the death threats she got after he asked for my resignation,” Mr Raffensperger told Fox News at the time. “I have not heard one peep from that man since. If he wants to call me, face-to-face, man-to-man, I’ll talk to him, off the record, but he hasn’t done that.” Ms Loeffler initially supported efforts among GOP lawmakers to reject the election’s outcome during the joint session of Congress on 6 January, 2021, but she reversed her decision after a mob of then-President Trump’s supporters broke into the US Capitol and stormed the halls in an effort to stop the certification of Mr Biden’s victory. The special grand jury report indicates that then-Senator Perdue was involved with the “persistent, repeated communications directed to multiple Georgia officials and employees” between November 2020 and January 2021. Sixteen jurors voted to indict him on a charge of filing false documents, with one juror voting against and one abstaining. The special grand jury also implicated Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and the national scheme to overturn 2020 election results, “focused on efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania” and Washington DC, according to the report. Seventeen jurors voted to support a RICO indictment against Mr Perdue, with four jurors voting against charges. In the case of Ms Loeffler, 14 jurors supported the charge, while six voted against and one abstained. A footnote in the report notes that one of the dissenting jurors voting against recommending indictments against the senators on the RICO charge “believes that their statements following the November 2020 election, while pandering to their political base, do not give rise to their being guilty of a criminal conspiracy.” In a statement following the release of the special grand jury report, Ms Loeffler said she was “giving voice to millions of Americans who felt disenfranchised in 2020” and that she would not be “intimidated by a two-tiered system of justice that seeks to systematically destroy conservatives across this country.” In 2022, Mr Perdue was enlisted and endorsed by Mr Trump to run for governor of the state against incumbent Mr Kemp. Mr Perdue lost that race as well. Read More Trump’s access to classified documents restricted by Mar-a-Lago case judge in lead up to trial – live Trump waives right to speedy trial as Georgia prosecutor seeks to try him with 18 others next month How did Lindsey Graham, Michael Flynn and others dodge charges in Fulton County indictment? Trump could face an extensive list of trials next year. Here are all the court dates

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WATSONVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 4, 2023--