“I definitely think we go into this final in a different place,” Gomez told Liverpoolfc.com. “It’s still a Champions League final and they’re always separate occasions and you have to approach it with the same mentality.

“But I think this year speaks for itself and the growth in the team has been massive.

“[The manager] shows and emphasises the fact that we’re a different team and we can’t go into thinking that we’re the same team.

“In that sense, we can take the confidence from that, but still have the desire to win one because we know what it means for this club and we want to get the sixth star.”

On his lengthy spell on the sidelines, he added: “It’s probably underestimated a bit how much it can affect us as footballers.

“Like it might just seem that you’re injured and now you just watch the boys, but it hurts – especially [in] a year like this that was pretty historic.

“To watch a large majority of those games, having had a taste of it at the beginning, was difficult to take. Obviously it was nice to overcome it and get a bit of involvement at the end.

“We’ve just got to move on now and we’ve got a big game. There’s a lot of ups and downs, but it’s all a learning curve.”