Liverpool will be able to field their African contingent of Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita for the club’s upcoming pivotal clash with Chelsea on the second of January.
This comes from Rob Harris at AP, with the publication reporting that CAF after allowing domestic divisions to release their relevant players for the AFCON in January on the 3rd of the month.
It will mean that the Reds miss their key trio for both legs of a semi-final league cup clash with Arsenal in addition to a FA Cup meeting with Shrewsbury Town and two league ties with Brentford and Crystal Palace.
It’s a decision that is of benefit to the Blues too, who will be able to rely on the services of Senegalese No.1 Edouard Mendy for our future English-top flight game at the start of January.
Of course, few can deny that we would have objectively suffered more of the two (given the number of first-team stars heading to AFCON) had clubs been required to send players off on or before 2nd January.
It’ll be difficult to negotiate the other challenges of the month without the trio, however, though we’ll be hopeful to see our backup options step up, as they have previously, in their absence.