The impact of AFCON

Again, not all teams can make it to the end. If its Cameroon vs Ivory Coast in final then were fecked for 4 or 5 weeks, but why worry about something that may not happen
 
AkaAkuma said:
They will miss 3 games over the xmas period and 3 games in january depending on how fr they go.

If they have to join the squads early they may miss 4.

The 3 games over xmas are Villa, Newcastle and Wolves.
After is Burnley, Leeds, Man City.
The game before the tournament starts is bournemouth.

I’m lazy to check which teams qualified
Villa lose guessand
Newcastle lose Wissa
Wolves have Munetsi, the rb and cb
Burnley have foster, meijbri

I’m tempted to say leaving early is beneficial as it takes semenyo and diaktete out of the bournemouth team. Maybe Kroupi? Not sure if he’s pledged for an african team.
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Biggest unfairness there is Meijbri. You can always count on him to make a critical mistake.
 
eire-red said:
I don't know whether we will have a good season or not, but I can guarantee it's not going to hinge on the 4 weeks we have some players gone to Afcon. Same goes for the long term with this team. That's the point I was making...

I'd rather Mbuemo and Amad weren't going to Afcon, and I'll miss watching the flair and energy they bring to the team, but that's part of football and people are talking like this is going to derail our season.
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Not exactly a guarantee you can make. Losing two of our key players for even a couple games could easily be the difference between a european spot or not.
 
I really hate to be that guy but I hope Cameroon and Ivory Coast crash out quickly in this tournament so that the boys are back pronto.

There's also just zero reason that this tournament needs to be held 6 months before a World Cup.
 
If we had to play without them right now the line-up would be something like:

Lammens
MDL - Maguire - Shaw
Dalot - Casemiro - Bruno - Dorgu
Mount - Cunha
Sesko
​
It's not that bad relative to our normal starting eleven. The only major problem is not having Amad as a wingback and having to play both Dalot/Dorgu instead of just one of them.

I suppose we could also move Shaw to LWB for a few games , and play Yoro or Martinez at LCB.
 
Hopefully the NTs get dispatched from the tournament as quickly as possible! ;)

 
This could present an opportunity to blood a few of our promising youngsters ?

Typically we’d use the League Cup to give a few of the young boys some experience but without that option perhaps AFCON will actually be a blessing in disguise ?
 
Mazraoui will not be greatly missed if our defenders stay fit.

It's Cameroon that we need to be gone before Man City. Mount/Mainoo/Lacey will be able to replace Amad by either Bruno going to RAM or Mount/Lacey taking over with Mbeumo as RWB hopefully at that tailend.
 
Most of our attacking threat comes from the right side - we will be toothless without those 3.
 
A positive spin is that it might see some players like cunha or sesko take the spotlight.
Maybe Lacey can step in with all odds against him physically and have a moment.

Otherwise we need to grind things out.
 
The obvious workaround for a month would be Dalot and Mount or Bruno on the right with Mainoo replacing Bruno.
 
We have a serious dependency on Mbeumo and Amad; we’re not really playing cohesive football, which means Mbeumo’s intuitive movement is carrying a lot of what we are. Remove him and we either need another player to pick up the individual brilliance baton, or our collective play has to improve massively. Losing Amad on top makes us deficient on that flank.

It’s a big concern because Dalot is shocking and that inside right position will need a very productive player in it. Bruno? Mount? Zirkzee?

We need to start experimenting before those players leave, which would require us to be comfortably ahead in games by 70mins or so… =/
 
It will be like when we Amad was injured for a while last season and our only threat was Garnacho. We'll struggle.
 
Just looked that Ivory Coast and Cameron are in the same group. So potentially one of Amad or Mbeumo comes back right after group stages. My bet is on Onana doing his usual thing and Mbeumo to be back. Afcon is expected to start on 21st and group stages will finish by 31th Dec. We are playing against Aston Villa away on 21st and then Newcastle on 27th and Wolves on 31st. Since Cameron is playing on 24th only and hopefully we get the approval from their board, potentially he would miss Newcastle (27th Dec) and Wolves (31st Dec) only which is not too bad since both are at Home.

However if they reject our request then it becomes a slight issue as he will miss four matches. Fingers crosses its the former, because their President of Board is none other than Eto, who is kind of a dick.
 
Fahad Jawaid said:
Just looked that Ivory Coast and Cameron are in the same group. So potentially one of Amad or Mbeumo comes back right after group stages. My bet is on Onana doing his usual thing and Mbeumo to be back. Afcon is expected to start on 21st and group stages will finish by 31th Dec. We are playing against Aston Villa away on 21st and then Newcastle on 27th and Wolves on 31st. Since Cameron is playing on 24th only and hopefully we get the approval from their board, potentially he would miss Newcastle (27th Dec) and Wolves (31st Dec) only which is not too bad since both are at Home.

However if they reject our request then it becomes a slight issue as he will miss four matches. Fingers crosses its the former, because their President of Board is none other than Eto, who is kind of a dick.
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Both Cameroon and Ivory Coast are expected to finish top 2 (easily) in Group F to advanced to Round of 16!
 
Raoul said:
Hopefully the NTs get dispatched from the tournament as quickly as possible! ;)

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Potentially 21 points there will be affected by losing both of our best players in Amad and Mbeumo.

This is massive for our aim to qualify for Europe.
 
Mike Smalling said:
We will be a worse side. No doubt. But we do still have options.

Dalot - Casemiro - Bruno - Dorgu
Cunha - Mount
Sesko
​
Granted we have much less quality in the wide areas with this, but it's not a terrible team.
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1. Anyone worried that we have Casemiro playing full games? Right now they have found some system where he doesn't have to do a truckload of running. Will losing the AFCON players affect that? I worry about Casemiro's stamina when we have a full squad, much less when we're down players and games come fast and furious.

2. Anyway we can get both Lisandro and Shaw on at the same time? We can use Shaw to push up the line and cover the left if either Dorgu or Dalot need subbed.

3. Alot more Kobbie and Ugarte. Need Ugarte to start stepping up re: point #1 about Casemiro.

4. Need Maguire and Heaven soon. Very thin when we lose our AFCON players.
 
Does it seem insane to anyone else that we could conceivably be without one or two of our best players for 18% of the EPL season because of this?
 
We should be starting our guys due for the AFCON as much as possible to save the legs of those left behind. But balanced with substituting them early as their departure nears.
 
Todd said:
Does it seem insane to anyone else that we could conceivably be without one or two of our best players for 18% of the EPL season because of this?
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We new this when we bought those players.
 
Todd said:
Does it seem insane to anyone else that we could conceivably be without one or two of our best players for 18% of the EPL season because of this?
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Probably to many, as the next afcon is in the summer
 
Cameroon seem to have a few issues with the manager being sacked and Onana left out along with Aboubakar who was captain. Anguissa is missing through injury too.

With a bit of luck they won't go too far in the tournament and Mbeumo can return sooner.
 
IRN-BRUno said:
Cameroon seem to have a few issues with the manager being sacked and Onana left out along with Aboubakar who was captain. Anguissa is missing through injury too.

With a bit of luck they won't go too far in the tournament and Mbeumo can return sooner.
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Cameroon have massive internal issues too. It's very political
 
As per the BBC, the number of players each team has leaving for AFCON:

Sunderland - 7
Wolves - 5
Palace - 1-4
Forest - 1-4
Fulham - 3
Man Utd - 3
Burnley - 3
Everton - 2-3
West Ham - 2
Man City - 2
Brentford - 2
Spurs - 1-2
Liverpool - 1
Brighton - 1
Villa - 1
Bournemouth - 1
Newcastle - 0-1
 
To be fair the fixtures could be worse. I'm sure it will have an impact on us going forward but we're playing all of the bottom three in the 5 games they will likely miss.

They'll be back for that City game if they don't make the final.
 
sullydnl said:
As per the BBC, the number of players each team has leaving for AFCON:

Sunderland - 7
Wolves - 5
Palace - 1-4
Forest - 1-4
Fulham - 3
Man Utd - 3
Burnley - 3
Everton - 2-3
West Ham - 2
Man City - 2
Brentford - 2
Spurs - 1-2
Liverpool - 1
Brighton - 1
Villa - 1
Bournemouth - 1
Newcastle - 0-1
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And I thought 3 players was bad, Sunderland losing 7 players for that period is crazy planning. Christmas period is bad enough without that number of players lost.
 
Devil81 said:
And I thought 3 players was bad, Sunderland losing 7 players for that period is crazy planning. Christmas period is bad enough without that number of players lost.
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Yep. Luckily for them they've made such a good start to the season that it probably won't matter too much. Even if they struggle for a bit they'll still be fine.
 
I fear we will be one of the most impacted sides in the league because of the importance of Amad and Mbuemo in particular. Sunderland will be hurt. Poxy Liverpool are actually getting a favour with Salah leaving.
 
Fr. Todd Unctious said:
If Ivory Coast and Cameroon end up on the same side of the draw we'll be guaranteed to have Amad or Mbeumo back for the City game at least
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If they’re in the same group, aren’t they guaranteed to be on different sides of the draw if they finish 1st and 2nd respectively?
 
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