My Squawka Trio. Number 3 – Why Steven Gerrard isn’t suited to a Quarter Back role

The scientific football data analysis community has been filled by a lot of talk in the last fortnight.

Exactly 3.2% of this talk has concerned with the “withdrawn trequartista versus overblown false number 6 debate“, another 4% has been related to “Statistical models and the 1950s champions league“. The remaining 92.8% of it has been devoted to the “Steven Gerrard Quarter Back Role in That Modern Football” debate.

The last  issue is so hot it is quite literally the pomme de terre chaud du jour in That Modern Football. While we’re able to agree that Gerrard’s body won’t allow him to play the expansive and athletic style of old we can’t all agree about this “Quarter Back role“.

I’m firmly in the no side of the debate brigade, and here’s why.

Let’s start off with a couple of lovely heat maps because they are the stained glass windows for the 21st century’s peasants. (What I mean here is that the heat maps are like the stained glass windows in medieval churches in that they help the illiterate peasants of our age understand the stories and issues of our time. I say this just in case you couldn’t understand the intellectual reference I was making.)

These heat maps shows that the “Quarter Back Role” will seriously inhibit Gerrard’s natural talents. He’ll go from this;

To this;

These heat maps prove that employing Gerrard in the will seriously restrict his movement. The “Quarter Back Role”  won’t allow Gerrard to use his undoubted natural gifts.

There are other compelling arguments against deploying Gerrard in the “Quarter Back Role”. Firstly the role will force him to wear the wrong kit. A real Quarter Back Wears this when he plays.

Gerrard doesn’t even wear a helmet when he plays.

Again the “Quarter Back Role” will negate his abundant natural gifts.

Lastly, while it can be argued that the real Quarter Back’s defining qualities and a humdrum midfielders’ defining qualities are one and the same – they’re both defined by their ability to pick the right pass – there are subtle differences between the two roles.

Someone fulfilling the real Quarter Back role generally uses their hand to pass the ball.

When Gerrard fulfills “the humdrum midfielder role” he generally uses his feet to pass the ball.

If Gerrard used his hands to pass the ball in a match he would concede at least a free kick and a yellow, and possibly a penalty and a red card, because picking the ball up is a deliberate contravention of the laws of football. What would be the point in Gerrard picking the ball up? Where is the efficiency?

To sum up, Steven Gerrard is just not suited to the “Quarter Back Role” as defined by my colleagues in the scientific football data analysis community.

I don’t mean to make it sound as this unsuitedness is inevitable but the industrial mindset of the football authorities inevitably make this unsuitedness inevitable.

Hopefully the scientific football data analysis community will have its way. Hopefully the pressure we can exert on the powers will destroy the pre-industrial mindset that pollutes football. The world deserves to see a type of football that’s unashamedly modern. The world deserves a type of football where there is equality between bodily parts.

Join the quest for equality!!

I have spoken, let that be an end to matter.