no cuz we did have movement on top when we had the 3 behind the striker. diego, gio & camo linked well. diego always had 2/3 forward moving players ahead of him when he got the ball. gio's pace was also an asset.
now diego is isolated and whe he looks up all he has is 2 static fowards one of which always drops back to get the ball.
Thats not entirely true. Even during these game we did not move VERY well. The whole team must move alot. Its like under Ranieri we played 4-4-2. There are games when we played very well because the players were running more and passing faster and there were also games when we sucked badly because we were too lazy to move. Same situation under Capello and under Lippi (with the last one having much less sucky games because he did manage to let the players run and switch places in the best way possible).
Look at Lippi's midfield during that days, it was Camo, Davids, Tacchinardi and Nedved.. All four used to run and open up spaces for both forwards. Who doesn't remember Davids forward runs. In addition, all players passed the ball simply and on the ground. So whenever we made a long pass it was a change and unpredictable. Although in many occasions lippi played 4-4-2, Nedveds drifting to the middle and switching places with Alex made it so creative. In fact Nedved, camo and Alex used to swap places and confuse the opponents (aka off the ball movement which we lack now).
With Capello we relied more on long passes but the team was so freakin solid. Capello's formation worked really well with Del Piero on the field because he used to change the dull two dimensional 4-4-2 to a three dimensional 4-4-1-1 by going back alot. But he did not succeed well in the CL because he relied on two DM that do not move alot but they were always available as relay points for all the players.
The trick in Ranieri's formation was Del Piero. He was given complete freedom to create and do whatever he wants.
With Ferrara the team was not assigned well and were not told how to run or how to position themselves. With Zac, well its too early to tell. So lets see how things develop in the next game.
It really doesn't make a difference which ever formation we play if the players do not know where to stand during every specific situation. In addition, they do not run enough and try to open up spaces.