Can’t see us going 3,5,2 as this is a more defensive formation and involves no wingers while we have 6.
Can’t see us going a conventional 4,4,2 as Gerrard apparently dislikes it.
I suspect we’ll go an Advocaat style 4,4,2 with 3 box to box players and 1 winger given license to attack. Or just stick 4,3,3 but play either Defoe or Morelos narrow right. Both these formations are near identical for practical purposes.
I think Alfie would suit the narrow right role better than Defoe but depends whether that fits the rest of the team and, unfortunately, whether he’s happy with it. We probably don’t really want to be “demoting” him with a transfer window open. I’d hope he wouldn’t see it as demotion.
What we need is Alfie playing his usual game and Defoe slipping into the spaces he creates. Which one nominally drifts right probably doesn’t matter. The issue there will be that it loses us Candeias and may make us weaker defensively on that side. We should be fine with that against most teams and hopefully an upgraded midfield will cover it. Davis often used to play the right side of midfield for us...
It also needs to be remembered that Defoe may well not play 90 minutes of every match. Him and Candeias may regularly be substitutes for each other.