I've said it already week ago, will copy/paste myself. One the best game from Claudio under Conte was when he used him against RM at home (I think) in 433 on the right side. Of course Claudio didn't play a winger or inside, but he covered a lot off ground, always positioned himself great for pass and basically almost shut off Ronaldo. Now imo Max have basically two main set ups in this 4231:
– Cuadrado on the right gives us width, speed, one on one dribbling and moments of absolutely unpredictable brilliance like his shot yesterday. RB is mainly responsible for defense here.
– Claudio a little on the right in front of the Sami and Mire. With him we are more covered in the middle, he is far better defensively, better passer and safer with the ball. Dybala mainly cuts from the right here as he likes to do, while Claudio takes some defensive burden from him. But here RB should be able to provide the width, like Sandro does on the other side, and we lose this John Sqaures ability to beat anyone mano a mano . And I doubt that we have a player in our squad who can play RB like that.