i see no physical reason why MDS could not be just as good. lichtsteiner is neither a good crosser of the ball nor a good dribbler. All he did was body feints and run past opponents like a windhound. If Lichtsteiner was the best or one of the best in his position is debatable, because i think his performance was heavily augmented by us having pirlo. those balls over the defense were majestic and not many can play those balls with that accuracy.
if we had lichtsteiner in his best form he still would not be impressive, because we simply have nobody that can play the ball like pirlo.
So lichtsteiner would make the run in behind the defense, whoever would try to play to ball to lichtsteiner would fail and the ball gets intercepted and the counter attack of the opponent now has our right wing exposed with nobody to cover.
in that sense i am glad that MDS right now does not do those runs, because if he did there would be nobody to deliver the balls. it would only leave us even more exposed.