The thing about principles is that while the key is in sticking to them, that isn't where the joy is.
That comes from striking out, daring to be different and taking a bit of a punt which no-one sees coming, least of all yourself as you'd vowed to keep on doing your tried and tested before temptation took hold.
And so while there is absolutely no doubt that It is the details in Liverpool's methodical approach to scouting, transfers, contracts and analytics which have taken the club as far as they've gone in the last few years, winning everything that is important to them and playing some remarkable football along the way, there has never been a clearer case for a bit of a zig while everyone expects a zag.
Roberto Firmino's first Premier League start of the season against Chelsea on Saturday meant that this is now the fifth campaign in which he has formed the now-famed strike trio with Mo Salah and Sadio Mane.
That is probably not what Liverpool planned when the three of them first came together, most thrillingly in the second half of the 2017-18 season after Philippe Coutinho had left.
The emergence of Diogo Jota means that it is no longer a given that the three - all of whom will turn 30 in the next 10 months - will start every game together, and Firmino's early injury against Chelsea meant that this start wasn't a very substantial one.
Jurgen Klopp confirmed that the Brazilian will undergo a scan on the hamstring issue which forced him off at Anfield, adding that he didn't expect his injury to be a particularly damaging one. A convenient blow to miss the international break, you might say.
But whatever the length of Firmino's absence - two weeks, four weeks, two months - the idea that the Reds need to sign another attacking player is a very real one. It was there before the injury, before the game and certainly during it as they failed to break down a Chelsea side that defended superbly.
Having not found the breakthrough during that opening period of the second half when the pressure on Edouard Mendy's goal was relentless, Liverpool lost their way and were guilty of trying the same thing too many times, with Jota looking somewhat crowded out in the land of the giants in blue.
The Portuguese is a fantastic forward, and has to be considered as the best piece of business the Reds have done since the summer of Alisson and Fabinho, but he seems destined to be a player who makes the difference in matches against the bottom 12 or 14 teams in the league, when his movement and goal threat will prove too much for them.
Chelsea could handle him, but that wasn't really his fault. They could handle anyone in that form.
The problem was more that Liverpool didn't appear to have a plan B, or a different type of forward they could turn to from the bench. Thoughts turned even to Divock Origi for one of his headline-grabbing cameos, but the Belgian wasn't even in the matchday squad.
His continued presence at Liverpool has to be questioned if he wasn't even considered good enough to be an option on an evening when he could actually have been a useful one, with Jota, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Takumi Minamino and Naby Keita the attack-minded players in reserve.
It was something of a surprise even that Klopp didn't turn to one of that latter trio in the search for something different, with Keita's agent taking to Twitter to criticise his client's non-selection.
Harvey Elliott has rightly been lauded for his performance during the game, with Gary Neville also singling him out for praise on what was probably his first real outing in front of a prime-time football watching TV audience.
But to leave the 18-year-old on for 90 minutes, especially when his desire to cut inside onto his left foot a la Salah was being well dealt with by Chelsea, was a little puzzling.
Neville's analysis focused on the fact that Trent Alexander-Arnold was also stationed narrowly and wasn't bursting down the flank, but the right back would have been helped if he had a different type of outlet on that flank with him, something Oxlade-Chamberlain or Minamino could have done, of even Jordan Henderson had he switched to the right side.
Most pertinently though, the Reds looked short of a top level attacking option who they could have turned to to try and knock down the blue wall. Every other Premier League title challenger has those options, despite Manchester City's recent transfer misfires.
Liverpool's famed transfer committee and their gifted sporting director Michael Edwards will have a list of forwards they are interested in locked away somewhere in a Kirkby drawer, and unless a player high up that list becomes available for a fee that the club consider fair then they won't make a move.
That hasn't happened at all during this transfer window, and so there have been no senior attacking incomings at Anfield.
But in the final few days of the window, and in light of the Firmino injury and Chelsea frustration, could Liverpool just be a little daring? Could they make a move that they are perhaps not 100 per cent sure will work as they want it to, but will at least flesh out the squad with a much-needed option?
It could turn out to be where the joy is, but it could also be the difference between regret and rejoicing come May.
