Even leaving aside the marked decline in his levels over the past few years, he just doesn't really suit the way we play anymore? He has always dropped deep to receive the ball but that was when we had two wide forwards who bagged tons of goals and midfielders capable of running beyond him. Bar Salah, we have none of those things now.
He doesn't score very often, he doesn't quite have the legs to press anymore (and our team is struggling to do that anyway), he's no longer particularly effective at linking play, he's visibly struggling with the pace of the game. He still has the odd effective half and he's still a very good footballer, but he looks badly ill-suited to this team now, and it's being compounded by the lack of legs elsewhere on the pitch.
