Hungry Salah and upgraded Liverpool can use run-in to tune up for Paris

Managers usually dislike revenge talk, at least in public, and Jürgen Klopp was no exception the last time Liverpool prepared to meet Real Madrid in the Champions League. “We are not on a revenge tour here,” he said before last season’s quarter-final. “Sometimes it [a reunion] is close enough, like a week or two later, and then you can have these kind of emotions in you.” Or four years later, as is the case with Mohamed Salah.

Salah has been surprisingly open this week on his feelings towards Liverpool’s third Champions League final appearance in five seasons.

Related: Mohamed Salah admits Liverpool have ‘score to settle’ against Real Madrid

“I want to play Madrid,” he told BT Sport following Liverpool’s semi-final defeat of Villarreal on Tuesday. “We lost in the final against them, so I want to play against them and hopefully win it from them as well.” Shortly after Madrid granted his wish with their astonishing comeback against Manchester City on Wednesday, the Egypt international posted on social media: “We have a score to settle.” There was no need to elaborate further.

Klopp will prioritise other factors for the final on 28 May, such as the benefits or otherwise of Liverpool competing on every front before arrival in Paris, while Carlo Ancelotti’s team work towards that one game having won the Spanish title last weekend. But, courtesy of Salah’s message, he will be unable to deny that revenge is a motivating force inside the Liverpool dressing room.

No player suffered as Salah did in the 2018 Champions League final of course – and the “we” in his message could have been of the royal variety – but he is one of eight players who started the 3-1 defeat in Kyiv who will, fitness permitting, be involved for Liverpool