Player departures to take into account for the Premier League
by Joseph King | by Joseph King
The African Cup of Nations runs from January 13th to February 11th with the group stage wrapping up on January 24th. That means the 24th is the earliest point in which players will start returning to their clubs, should their national team suffer elimination at this stage. However, only eight teams will be bounced out of the group stage with 16 of the 24 teams qualifying for the knockout stages thanks to the best third-place qualifying format.
As for the AFC Asian Cup, it mirrors the AFCON very closely both in timeline and structure. The tournament kicked off on January 12th and will run until February 10th. It sees the final group stage matches played on the 25th and also incorporates the best third-place team format with 16 of the 24 teams qualifying for the next round.
In this article we’re going to focus on which Premier League teams are the most affected by the absence of its main stars or important squad players. Naturally, team selection is vital when analyzing a match for your sports predictions so you’ll want to be acutely aware of which potentially influential players won’t be suiting up for their club teams during this period.
Right off the bat, we can report that only three Premier League teams are completely unaffected by the situation with Manchester City, Newcastle and Burnley not having a single player involved.
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Absences due to the AFCON
The African Cup of Nations features some of football’s biggest names, none bigger than Liverpool’s legendary forward Mohamed Salah. Salah will no doubt be dreaming of lifting his first AFCON trophy after coming up just short as runner-up in 2017 and 2021. Unfortunately for the 31-year-old, a hamstring injury suffered in the second group stage game looks to be putting the rest of his tournament participation at risk. It’s also sure to infuriate Jurgen Klopp, whose Liverpool side are currently involved in a tight race for the Premier League title. Another key part of the Egyptian midfield is Arsenal’s Mohamed Elneny, although he is just a squad player at club level.
Host nation Ivory Coast will be looking to win their third AFCON title and first since 2015 on home soil and will have four Premier League players to call upon. Three players from Nottingham Forest are participating: Willy Boly, Ibrahim Sangare and Serge Aurier, as well as Brighton’s winger Simon Adingra.
Three-time AFCON champions Nigeria see four of their players arriving from Premier League clubs. These are: Nottingham Forest’s Ola Aina, Brentford’s Frank Oyenka and a Fulham duo of Calvin Bassey and Alex Iwobi.
Defending champions Senegal have the highest Premier League player count in their squad at six as they look to become the first nation since Egypt to win back-to-back AFCON titles. They’ve called up Fulham’s Fode Ballo Toure, another Nottingham Forest duo in Cheikhou Kouyate and Moussa Niakhate, Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson, Pape Sarr from Tottenham and finally Idrissa Gueye from Everton.
Burkina Faso have experienced a strong start to the 2024 African Cup of Nations by winning their first match and present an interesting dark horse candidate in this tournament. They see three players called up from Premier League teams with Bertrand Traore arriving from Aston Villa, Issa Kabore from Luton Town and Bouremouth’s Dango Ouattara.
2019 champs Algeria call up Wolves’ Rayan Ait-Nouri and Sheffield United’s Yasser Larouci. The Ghanaian national team sees three Premier League players join their ranks in Mohamed Kudus of West Ham, Jordan Ayew of Crystal Palace and Antoine Semenyo of Bournemouth.
Wrapping things up with the African nations, Yoane Wissa will support Congo from Brentford, Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana will represent Cameroon and Anis Ben Slimane from Sheffield United will play for Tunisia.
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Absences to take into account for the Asian Cup
The AFC Asian Cup sees fewer Premier League players taking part with a total of only eight from six total teams.
Starting with two of the top competing teams of the Premier League, Takehiro Tomiyasu of Arsenal joins up with his Japanese teammates, as will Wataru Endo of Liverpool. Brighton’s electric winger Kaoru Mitoma will be a big miss to Brighton as he joins Japan in search of the nation’s fifth Asian Cup title.
South Korea also sees three players join up with the team from the Premier League with Tottenham’s Son-Heung Min, Brentford’s Ji-Soo Kim and Wolves’ Hwang Hee-Chan.
The final two players from the English top flight belong to Wolves’ Justin Hubner who will represent Indonesia and Saman Ghoddos of Brentford who will join up with Iran.
The total damage to the Premier League comes to 40 players divided among 17 teams. Nottingham Forest sees the most absences with a total of six players.
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Watch live and bet on the Premier League
As you can see from this article, there is a sizable chunk of players missing out on their club team matches. This is vital to take into account for your analysis when making your Premier League predictions.
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