Don't think he's playing as badly as it superficially seems to me. He's always heavily involved, and effective in lesser respects.
But the scarcity of the "moments" we'd become used to from Rice is making his form seem bad. If he's not assisting a set piece or crashing the box at times, the rest of his game can seem entropic, highly active without being incisive.
Total negative reflections on his entire role playing at 8 or in this quasi double pivot thing we're doing are hot air. He's a Ballon d'Or nominee not Denilson.
