Quite a bit actually, yes. When you sit deep and hit trams on the counter you do so against teams that have commit players forward, impacting both the team's numbers in defence, the defensive shape and how high the defensive line is. This is then much easier to take advantage of with pace.
It's why players who are purely pacey can look phenomenal with space, but quite poor without the required coaching and technical ability against compact defences. Our own Dan James is a great example of this.
There are countless examples, us earlier in the season beating the better teams by counter attacking but looking clueless against teams that defended deep, for example.
It requires longer periods of intelligent movement, larger periods of dominance, more patience, there is less space to operate and generally speaking the ball can't travel as much distance. Unlike counter attacks where the ball can travel extremely far distances due to more space being offered. Not to add, it often results in space behind, with reduced numbers, causing defenders ro commit to challenges, with support, they may not have done.
Its by no means easy to implement and the quality of players you have when counter attacking is obviously still highly important, but I don't think it's as difficult to coach as other types of offensive football.
The reason the smaller teams can't do it as well is simply due to coaching potentially but imo more importantly due to inferior personnel.
