I was wondering this myself. I imagine that if our front 3 can occupy a center back each then that will force their wing backs to make it a back 5 and really pin them into their third.
I'm sure we'll stick to our normal game and force them to try to play against our strengths, rather than trying to counter them. Having said that, playing a front 3 like we do relies on your attackers being able to consistently beat their man to create space. This game would be a great one to test the Sturridge/Origi strike partnership in the league. From a selfish perspective, that's something I'd really enjoy watching.
There's some logic behind it too. In theory, 3 at the back is weakest to two up front. Reason being, they drift into the space between Defenders 1 & 2 and 2 & 3 forcing someone out of position to meet them. This invariably creates space either on a wing or through the middle for a deep run from midfield.
So let's say it starts like this:
-------------------------------- Defender 1 -------------------Defender 2 ------------------Defender 3---------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------Striker 1----------------------Striker 2----------------------------------------------------
The defenders need to get close to the strikers or risk getting skinned on the counter. Regardless of how they chose to close down, space is created. I'll give two examples here but every possible combination results in a similar situation:
Example 1:
------------------------------------------ Defender 1 -------------------Defender 2 ------------------Defender 3------------------------------
------Midfielder/Fullback------------------------------Striker 1----------------------Striker 2---------------------------------------------------
In this case, the two strikers get narrow and draw Defender 1 & 2 into them, creating a gaping whole on the left for a midfielder & full-back to have a 2 on 1 with the opposition 'fullback'
Example 2:
---------------------------- Defender 1 -----------Defender 2 ------------------------------Defender 3---------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------Striker 1---------------Midfielder-------------------Striker 2---------------------------------
Here the two strikers stretch the back line, creating a gap in the middle for a deep run from midfield.
Obviously it's not always this simple and you have the opposition midfield tracking such runs but with fluid off-the-ball movement, it can be quite easy to create space on the counter against a back 3 if you chose two strikers. As for when they drop deep and create a back 5 with 3 in front, space in the box is obviously very limited but they make passing it around our back 4-6 incredibly easy and lack the extra body in midfield to close down long-range efforts. If they did that, you could expect a Coutinho screamer.
As I said, highly unlikely we'll mess with a winning formula but that's my 2 cents.
