Liverpool get their Europa League campaign underway with a trip to Austria face LASK
Liverpool’s latest Europa League adventure gets underway tonight and it will provide the perfect stage for some of their fringe players to make an impact.
Manager Jurgen Klopp is taking the competition, UEFA’s second-most prestigious after the Champions League, seriously but is expected to experiment with his line-up during the six group games after a summer of rebuilding. This opener against LASK in Linz, Austria’s third-biggest city, will serve as quite a contrast to Liverpool’s recent European adventures, which have included three Champions League finals in the past six seasons. But the Europa League is the only trophy Klopp has competed for and not won since coming to Anfield in October 2015, and he has already said the plan is to make it “their competition”.
With this season’s final taking place in Dublin, capital of the Republic of Ireland, on May 22 — a match that could almost be a home game for Liverpool, just an hour’s flight away — expectations are high, but which players will benefit the most from being involved? Our experts will have their say in the following posts.