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| Grant left to bemoan African cup drain The African Cup of Nations will disrupt Premier League squads this January but Avram Grant at least has experience of coping successfullyWhen Didier Drogba left for the 2008 African Cup of Nations, Avram Grant's Chelsea were faced with the problem of how to replace their talismanic striker. The solution? Sign £15m worth of enigmatic French forward from Bolton Wanderers. Nicolas Anelka would be most welcome down at Fratton Park come January, but the Portsmouth manager is operating in a very different environment from that which he enjoyed in west London.Even if Ali al-Faraj, Portsmouth's third owner in five months, could afford replacements for the four players leaving the club for Angola and January's African Cup of Nations he would be hamstrung by the transfer embargo imposed by the Premier League. Plus players may be wary of joining a club where the timely payment of wages is no longer taken for granted.Saturday's 2-0 win over Liverpool bucked the season's trend but the Premier League's bottom club can ill afford to lose Nadir Belhadj, Hassan Yebda, Nwankwo Kanu and Aruna Dindane for a month following their Boxing Day match at West Ham United. Grant may be relieved that Kevin-Prince Boateng (Ghana) and John Utaka (Nigeria) were not called up but he still insists the tournament should not be played in January."I don't know why Fifa allow this. I don't know why they have the African Cup of Nations in January," Grant said. "We pay a lot of money, especially the big teams, to players who are not with you for two months. I think Fifa need to think about this."Although losing his players on 28 December until possibly the first week of February will leave Grant without a chunk of his skeletal squad for approximately a fifth of a Premier League season, for the Israeli it is not simply a matter of time. "It's not easy," he said. "The players go two weeks before and need one or two weeks afterwards to recover. Firstly you have to change the team and secondly it's not easy when they are back. They are coming from hot weather to the most cold days in England. It takes more than a few days to get back to normal."Premier League paupers and princes have to deal with the same problem – leaders Chelsea, like basement club Portsmouth, are contributing four players to the 28-strong exodus from England's top flight for the 27th staging of Africa's biennial tournament.Chelsea's African contingent – Drogba, Michael Essien, Salomon Kalou and Mikel John Obi – are the same four Grant saw leave for Ghana two years ago. Grant oversaw six wins and one draw (Anelka scored the opener in a 1-1 at Fratton Park) in that period, despite other, non-African Cup of Nations-related absentees."At Chelsea it was different because we had nine injuries anyway – Lampard was injured, Terry was injured," said Grant, who has taken seven points from a possible 15 since replacing Paul Hart on the south coast. "Then we had four good players – Drogba, Essien, Kalou and Mikel – go and play in this tournament. Even at Chelsea, we won most of the games at this time. It was not easy and we needed to think differently about the team. For any team that loses more than two or three players, it is not easy."One of Roberto Mancini's initial challenges at Manchester City will be to cope with the loss of the Ivory Coast duo Kolo Touré and Emmanuel Adebayor. He should be able to muddle on without Nigeria's Kelvin Etuhu. Hull City are also braced to lose a trio of players, while the north London clubs are set to make do without a pair of African players each. Everton can expect to lose at least two Nigerians.Given his knack for discovering raw talent from the continent Arsène Wenger must surely weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of his African contingent. For him to bemoan the loss of Alex Song and Emmanuel Eboué might be a touch hypocritical. Tottenham's manager, Harry Redknapp, on the other hand, last week described a January without Benoît Assou-Ekotto and Sébastien Bassong as "a disaster"."When you sign them I guess you know you're going to lose them every couple of years, playing in those games. It's a chance you take," said Redknapp, who had to cope with the loss of Kanu, Utaka and Sulley Muntari when he was in charge at Portsmouth two years ago.Grant had hoped to keep hold of his African quartet until after the home match with Arsenal on 30 December, but a deal could not be struck with Algeria (Belhadj, Yebda), Nigeria (Kanu) or Ivory Coast (Dindane). "We will try and speak with the teams and maybe it will be after Arsenal, but I don't think they will agree," he said. "This is a fact and we cannot change it. So we will try to win in January without these players."Only six clubs, including Liverpool and Manchester United, do not have to live with this reality.African Nations CupPortsmouthAvram GrantChelseaPremier LeagueMikey Staffordguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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