This short description is lifted from TLW
Stuart Quigley is a football obsessive and a heavy drinker – mostly because years of watching Liverpool has shot his nerves. Hopelessly in love with all aspects of the beautiful game and someone who has been known to string the odd melodramatic metaphor together while being nowhere near as pretentious as his words make him out to be. Writer of two unpublished novels, a handful of screenplays and for a year dabbled in the world of stand up comedy. Philosophically split right down the middle between the cold hard statistical analysis and the wild emotions that that come with watching football.
Is anyone on the forum familiar with his articles ?
http://www.theliverpoolword.com/author/stuart-quigley/
Liverpool’s Ever-Changing Circumstances and Road to Success
Life is a culmination of choices made, and chances taken. The odds on mere existence are infinitesimal. Every day decisions are made and the numbers land in or against our favour. Maybe the only thing less likely than history to have unfolded exactly in the manner it has, are the chances of getting everything right. Nobody will knowingly opt for something that isn’t the best course of action to take. Most of the time it comes down to a lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of the situation at hand.
Even in a clearly defined parameters, one so small as a playing field, for example, there are still an endless list of possible outcomes. Football is a game dependant – and loved for – it’s intangibles. If a ball lands at the feet of a clinical striker, the odds of him scoring are largely immaterial. What is important are the factors that went into deciding it landing there in the first place.
Come the end of the season and there will be plenty of “what ifs” being thrown around, but this kind of postulation leads to an ignorance of the bigger picture.
Change one, and you in turn affect them all.
Those that put their sole focus into tweaking one or two results then end up taking for granted the hard work put into the games that were won comfortably, or even more dangerously, gloss over the times in which we were fortunate to get anything from.
When there is a gulf in talent, often that does not translate well onto the pitch. Even when it does, there is no guarantee of a victory, let alone something that would illustrate true superiority. The margins that exist between success and failure are often no wider than the width of a post. At any moment, seemingly insignificant passages of play can lead to moments that last a lifetime.
Because this room for error is so tiny, it can be easy to ignore the fact that everything else that follows is dependant on the events that preceded it. If someone misses a good chance and they are then punished for it, the consensus is always that the match has – and always will be – swung in favour of the team that has been let off, and as such only becomes retrospectively important.
It’s perfectly fine to suggest that Liverpool should have two more points as a result of an erroneous offside call at Goodison for example, but who’s to say we wouldn’t have followed that result with an overconfident performance against Newcastle and lost?
It could have created a negative tailspin, just as likely as it may have been the catalyst to greater things. Much like every single debatable call which is constantly replayed on television, once the decision has been given, whatever circumstances surround it are irrelevant.
Rightly or wrongly, things have been put into motion and it is up to the players themselves to deal with the ripple effects.
Without the League Cup final defeat in 2005, Anfield may not have been quite as loud in the Champions League semi final without that thirst for revenge. Certainly the first leg would have seen more of a backlash from Chelsea had Gerrard managed to lift the trophy rather than inadvertently aided in their winning of it; which if nothing else would have been a helpful boost to the plastic flag-making industry.
Football’s structure allows for a continuing narrative over the course of time as well the more finite picture you get at the end of a single season.
Clubs will rise and fall not over ninety minutes, or 38 games, but as a result of the choices that are made and the subsequent effects that they have. The leap that selective editing makes is one that can only be addressed on the training ground or in the transfer window. In every fathomable scenario that exists within the confines of a single game, the only constant is education. That process of learning that transforms a collection of talented individuals, into a team.
The tests are as varied as they are often.
Break down a resolute defence, withstand an onslaught, overcome adversity in the face of injury or human error.
Sometimes it can be a combination of them and though there is no way to pass every single one of them, those that effectively deals with the most are almost certainly going to be right at the top.
So near and yet so far. Simply being close isn’t enough for maintaining success, regardless of how small that gap is. It’s noble to give your all, and fine in those circumstances to come up short, but that should not be where the story ends. This entire campaign has been the beginning of a new era for Liverpool Football Club with the introduction of a host of new faces.
When Brendan Rodgers was appointed it was a case of maybes, and it seems as if frustrating draws and unexpected defeats appear to ultimately stand between where Liverpool are and where they want to be, in terms of the Champions League. If the conversation is still about “what could have been” at the end of the season then nothing has changed. The whole point of arriving somewhere is that there has been a journey in order to get there.
Just because they haven’t got there yet doesn't mean the wrong path has been chosen.
Because history is written in such bold strokes by incidents which are so fickle in their nature, there are those that fear such responsibility. When failure is an option and the window of opportunity is forever closing, it becomes increasingly more difficult to reach out and do what’s required.
Brave are not those that do not have this feeling but rather do not let it stop them from achieving it. Part of being the very best means that these moments are not only welcome but actively sought out. In order to make it count, all you need is a chance.
Well ,no new rumours or speculative pokes as to our next recruit ,so I thought I would post something thought provoking.......sue me
