Man City can close gap on Liverpool and Arsenal thanks to Kevin De Bruyne return and AFCON and Asia Cup absentees
Two upcoming international tournaments have come at the worst possible time for Premier League clubs — but Manchester City have no issues.
A number of high-profile stars from the English top-flight will be competing in the Africa Cup of Nations and the Asian Cup next month.
Both competitions kick off in early January, with the final to not take place until four weeks later.
For many Premier League teams, clubs will be losing their best player for a designated period — mainly City's title-challenging rivals.
Liverpool will be losing Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah and Japanese midfielder Wataru Endo.
Meanwhile Arsenal will be forced to play without Ghana star Thomas Partey, Egypt's Mohamed Elneny and Japan's Takehiro Tomiyasu.
Tottenham skipper Son Heung-min will be captaining South Korea in the Asian Cup, with Spurs to also be without Mali's Yves Bissouma and Senegal's Pape Matar Sarr.
For Chelsea, striker Nicolas Jackson will be representing Senegal, while Altay Bayindir is set to make his long-awaited Manchester United debut with the goalkeeper poised to deputise in the absence of Cameroon's Andre Onana.
The Red Devils will also be without Sofyan Amrabat, who will be hoping to replicate his World Cup heroics for Morocco at AFCON.
West Ham's Mohammed Kudus (Ghana), Wolves' Hwang Hee-chan (South Korea), Everton's Abdoulaye Doucoure (Mali) and Fulham's Alex Iwobi (Nigeria) are other notable absentees.
But for City, they are just one of two Premier League clubs along with Newcastle who have no players to be departing on international duty.
And this could have huge implications in their quest to return to the summit of the table.
Currently occupying fourth spot, treble winners City are chasing history as they aim to become the first
Read on talksport.com
