Having a local heart of the team is important.
In a world where football clubs have become multi-billion-pound enterprises, there needs to be something that anchors these organisations to their area, besides the location of their stadium.
Think of previous generations of your favourite team and who you consider to be its biggest and best legends, and most Premier League clubs will side with the lads from the local area.
Think too of the next generation, who want to know they have a chance of playing for the side they support one day, and can see somebody who kicked a football around the same streets that they do pulling on that shirt at the highest level.
It's why some fans have shuddered recently at the idea of comparisons between Dominik Szoboszlai and Steven Gerrard.
Applying logic alone, they are both all-action, versatile midfielders, with a penchant for attacking and supreme technique combined with running power and work rate.
Applying sentiment, though, paints the lad supposedly dreaming of playing for Real Madrid one day in a totally different light than the legend who spent his best years at his boyhood club.
That's not to do down Szoboszlai, who is increasingly becoming every bit a leader and superstar with every sweeping run and screamer at Anfield, more to signify how important figures like Gerrard are to their local areas.
Which brings us to Curtis Jones, a player who was surprisingly linked away from Liverpool during a strange January transfer window for the club.
Applying logic alone, the 25-year-old needs game time and has shown such progression that surely the next step for his career is to go somewhere he can display that as a starter on a more regular basis than under Arne Slot.
Applying sentiment, though, means the lad born on an estate within Liverpool's city centre, who loves the club dearly and has spoken so candidly time and again about how much the down moments of this season have hurt him personally, does deserve to be viewed in a different light.
Because Jones is not only of the utmost importance to local lads aspiring to play for the Reds one day, he's also important to this current side, as a starting-level midfielder who provides something a little different to what any of his teammates can bring as a rotational player.
Possessing versatility, supreme technique, and a calm head when the moment demands is something that a heavily-injured, maligned, and under-pressure Liverpool side cannot afford to sniff at.
They also cannot simply throw money at replacing such a skillset. Because the truth is that Jones can not only save Liverpool some pennies, he's priceless.
Find more from Josh Sexton on outlets including The Anfield Wrap