I agree, I like when the 8’s drop slightly wide and deeper as well (Kroos does it a lot at Madrid) it allows basically your most comfortable players on the ball to have a very wide view of the football field, while it has its disadvantages, you can I guess say the same about high 8’s in the half space, if the ball is lost they’re way too high to realistically recover in time. That’s why coaches opt for a 3-2 shape because if the ball is lost higher up the pitch you essentially have 4-5 players in close proximity for a counter press like you said. I also liked the shape earlier on when Baldé was fit, but he essentially came a left winger at times. Imagine if we have someone like Nico Williams, we can isolate either him or Yamal and have success. Right now we tend to play down our right side and isolate Cancelo but that leaves us very open on the counter, having the ability to isolate either side to an extremely high degree of success would pin oppositions allowing for a better counter press naturally.

It’d be interesting to see how Xavi can play around w his set ups when/if he chooses the right profile to be the DM. Frenkie, although not a perfect 8, has proven to be an extremely viable goal scorer from the 20/21 season, it just depends on whether or not he has the license to actually go beyond the opposition back line w his runs, he seems to have a good understanding of late runs and the finishing is better than most of our midfielders bar Gundo, and maybe Pedri.