I'm sick of saying it every week, really.
He is past it. People talk about Barkley going out as 'CM is the hardest position, in the hardest league' etc. Well putting a 35 year old whose legs have gone there, when he has no natural ability on the ball... hmmmm. Genius.
I watched him deliberately today and so many times I saw the ball in between him and one of their players and he just stood off. He's not confident in his own legs to get to the ball, and when he did try he got carded and gave away another foul later on that a more stringent ref might have punished with an early bath.