Football By Numbers: Why Stats Are No Fun.

On their very brightest day, facts and figures are encouraging. Nobody truly gets excited and punches the air in delight after discovering a particularly pleasing conversion rate, the reaction you're more likely to come across is one of mild appeasement. The emotional equivalent of being at a party with barely anyone you know only to discover an old acquaintance. Life isn't suddenly inexplicably perfect but it's better than it was a moment ago.

That's not to say that I'm some kind of Hodgeasaurus who doesn't believe that stats have any relevance, far from it. What can be gleamed from them is useful but no conversion rate discussion captures the excitement of Daniel Sturridge when he's through on goal. The problem is that by and large, numbers are cold and unfeeling. Mourinho-esque in their rigidity. They're a slap to the face of ambiguity, with the ability to instruct and inform but very little else.

Football is a deluge of numbers. Because of their importance, they're forever in the top left corner of the minds eye. After a period of very clearly defined seconds and minutes, all that matters is for one side of a hyphen to be greater than the other. Those on the pitch - the people we put all our faith and hope in – once they cross that line all at once lose their identity and assume that of something greater. There was a time – feels like an eternity now – when Fernando Torres' name was sung with pride. Anfield would bounce along in honour of Liverpool's number nine and while it may seem that it may now forever be the height of his fame, there was no real magic in that fabric.

That shirt has a lineage which makes it coveted, so much so that it's current occupant spoke of his pride in adorning it for the first time on Saturday against Preston. Having been associated with players of the calibre of Rush, Fowler and Heighway mean that there is expectation. Whether or not Rickie Lambert will live up to that at Liverpool is still up for grabs. One thing is for sure. He's much more worthy of such a label than El Hadji Diouf ever was. Iago Aspas' decision to take that shirt last year looked brave and endeared him somewhat but ultimately only ever added a pressure his ability wasn't able to cope with. I doubt he'd make that same choice twice.

It goes even further than that. People generate their favourite figure by any number of frivolous means. Sometimes they're even capable of wielding some kind of magic. I'm not sure quite how a symbol used to represent quantity was somehow conferred these powers but thirteen in particular has a reputation. For better or worse, our strive for individuality leads to this. Fondness can be found because of any remote connection. The reason that Liverpool have a relationship with the number five is not because of our collective worship of terrible boy bands from the nineties. Similarly United love 1999 because they're all massive Prince fans. Obviously.

I've been told that they never lie, but Shakira's hips tell me they're not telling the whole truth. A last minute winner numerically speaking is the same as any other goal. It's simply one more to the tally. There's no way what happened in the dying moments at Craven Cottage in February can be described as trivially as that. Three points may be all that were awarded that day, same as any other victory. The manner in which they were obtained and the momentum that followed will never be represented.

Brendan Rodgers and his team have over the last twelve months kept the scoreboard ticking impressively. Over a hundred goals. Eighty four points. In the end however, it didn't quite add up. Looking at the table at the end of the season made for joyless reading, if you focus solely on the numbers. What'll raise a smile in years to come will not be sums and tallys, but headers and volleys.

Endings are the perspective from which all history is written. Those that triumph – have and always will set the narrative. The final score becomes the point from which the story is told. Any previous events that do not fit that mould are either bent into shape or discarded altogether. Spain were moments away from going into their encounter with the Netherlands in Salvador. David Silva probably should have doubled that lead moments before Daley Blind's cross field ball and Van Persie's incredible leap. Five-one doesn't care about all that. The result will even gloss over the epic nature of the goal which ultimately turned the tide. Five-one remains unmoved.

As languages go, binary does not have the capacity to convey Coutinho's goal against Manchester City. It was a feeling that can barely be quantified into words, let alone digits. There was something very Shakespearian about last year. Old Bill at his uppermost grandiose. Often baffling, defying all convention and eventually turning to tragedy. To address it simply in ones and twos would be to ignore what joy there remains in football.

Only one team can ultimately be crowned Champions of England and just because Liverpool slipped on their way to the throne does not invalidate everything that went before it. A sequence of incredible adventures that stir the heart, not a series of complex equations that tax the mind. Last season wasn't about an upward gradient. It was poetry in motion.