Firmino gets a lot of defensive headers in, despite not being all that tall. Of course his form has deserted him recently, so who knows?
Bold call to shove him at CB. Suppose can’t be any less of a goal threat from there than he has been up top recently
Hendo at CB? He weighs ten and half stone. We play teams like Burnley and they'll just go straight through him out of the way like a Japanese paper door.
Neither Matip nor Gomez are monsters - nor Fabinho or Williams, or any number of CBs. I've no idea whether or not Hendo could do the job, but there's more to it than mere bulk.
The FBs play like WBs anyway so all switching from 433 to 343 does is remove one player from CM to CB. CM is the engine room where the game is controlled, it's where the game is won and lost the majority of the time, plus our pressing would massively suffer with less players in there. Imo, 343 would completely undermine our style and approach.
joe competed with Deeney, who said he was physically stronger to play against than Lovren. Williams is lanky like Phil Thompson, who could hold his own against the likes of Joe Jordan and Andy Gray
Matip is the only one in the team that is close to Vvd in terms of winning aerial battles (around 70%). Gomez is at around 55% and Fabinho is around 60% (and he is the next best after Matip!). Not only are we losing Fabinho in the defence, but we also miss his aerial ability in midfield (which is the first line of protection for the centre backs) and his ability to win the second balls that VVD wins. We WILL struggle in the air - it's a given. All we can do is mitigate against this issue by keeping the ball as much as possible, closing down crosses, minimise set pieces etc..
If Alisson can stay fit, at least we know he can organise his defence, and get most of the stuff a keeper should get.
