A 4-3-3 requires a central target, two wingers, a midfield triangle, and a back four. If there isn't a central target and two wingers, then it's not a 4-3-3.
Why? According to whom?
I realise that Salah played the role of our 'striker' last season, and had the highest average position on the pitch. But it was also extremely clear that we had one central player dropping off from their defensive line - Firmino, and two starting from a wider starting position, one more involved in build up, one not.
Compared to the 4-2-3-1 we played yesterday there's no doubt that the roles are similar, but the positioning of Fab and Gini and Shaq compared to how we've play our 4-3-3 are clear.
Our version of a 4-3-3 ultimately had a very narrow '3' at the top. What made it a 4-3-3 were the clearly different strata. Of course, you could describe it properly accurately as something like:
A 4 when defending with 2 who are wingers in attack
1 who's a DM that occasionally drops between the CBs in possession but can actually be the furthest forward when pressing because of how our pressing traps work
1 who's a knitter, there to keep the midfield cohesive who's position and even role may depend a lot on his partners
1 who's there as a runner to break the lines unless it's Milner here who'll drift wide to get possession
1 who's starting out wide and often dribbling at players but certainly gets into the box where possible
1 who presses from the front, drops deeper to seek the ball but definitely still gets into the box especially on the break
1 who starts wide and has less responsiblity for tracking back and is always looking to attack the box through dribbling or timing of runs...
...But that would be a load of bollocks when all someone's trying to do is describe some obvious differences in shape and starting position without necessarily wanting to get bogged down into a massive tactical discussion.
In that case, I would say 4-3-3 very neatly describes a system with 2 CBs, 2 FBs, 3CMs and 3 FWDS.
