Do you mean: Messi plus 2 true Cfs like Suarez and Cavani?
Then we would lack width and wingers because all 3 would play through the middle.
It could probably work in La liga where we are way stronger than 90% of opponents.
In a CL, it would be the same good, old story with playing through the middle, being easily neutralized and exits in 1/4s.
At the end of the day, it seems that EV is not an idiot.
If you play Messi without Suarez, Messi will drop deep to a Cm and Cdm and he will be both a creator and finisher.
And since he is older, more tired and slower, he won't be able to both create and score.
He will have 3-4 good actions per match. During other 86 minutes, we will just pass the ball around without any ideas.
If you play Messi and 2 wingers, Dembele will hog a touchline and be somewhat out of a play for majority of a match and Coutinho is not a true Cf or a Lw.
So, against parked buses, we will have Messi at a CM, Dembele lost far away from a goal and Coutinho around the box.
In La Liga it might work to some extent, in a CL we will be dead again against any team who will mark Messi with 2-3 players.
So, basically, it seems that with a current Messi who doesn't have a strict position, we NEED to have a true CF in a box.
And then, we can only play 442 with Messi Cam and Suarez Cf and 1 winger in a 4men midfield (Cou or Dembele), like we played this season.
Or we can play some broken 433 with Messi Cam, Suarez Cf and Coutinho/Dembele further up the pitch.
So, as long as Messi doesn't have a position, we will need a true CF in the box and then you can't play a classic 433.
Imo, EV made some mistakes, but he is certainly not an idiot.
** For example, I would like us to play WITHOUT Suarez (and without Paco) in a few preseason friendlies so that people could see how a 3 man attack with Messi-Cou-Dembele and with Messi dropping to Cdm-Cm all the time would work (against some stronger opponent).
Imo, we would just pass the ball from left to right, without any purpose and ideas in attack, against a parked bus with only Cou around the box, Messi dropping deep, Dembele lost around a touchline.
You can't cross, since there is no one in the box.
You can't play through balls, since the opponent has parked a bus.
You can't play counters since the opponent has parked a bus.
You can't play long balls.
All you can do is play shortpasses for Messi, and we have seen enough of times in a CL and with Argentina how that will end, if passing to a false Cdm-Cm Messi in every single action without any plan B is the only attacking idea of our team.
Poor first touches... caught offside (as usual), trying to do that stupid dummy move where 99% of the time, there's absolutely no one behind him... cant pass if his life depended on it. Faackin hell.