The Africa Cup of Nations has long been a source of potential club vs country conflict coming as it does slap bang in the middle of the European football season.

The bi-annual competition is set to be hosted in Cameroon during January and February 2022 having previously been postponed from 2021 as a result of both the Covid-19 pandemic and more general concerns about the West African nation's preparadness to host the tournament.

Some 33 players currently on the books of Premier League clubs are due to be a part of the competition with pre-tournament favourites such as Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria all heavily represented by players who ply their trade in England's top flight.

A full list of Premier League players who are likely to take part in the Africa Cup of Nations is detailed below.

All Premier League players from squads or provisional squads announced by AFCON sides

With Premier League squads already stretched thin as a result of the growing number of Covid cases in the UK and the busy Christmas schedule to boot the upcoming AFCON seems likely to cause even more distruption to some of the biggest clubs in the world. Below we assess which clubs are likely to be most impacted.

Which Premier League club will have the most players at the Africa Cup of Nations?

Perhaps the easiest measure of which Premier League club will be most impacted is to simply count how many players they will be sending.

Leicester and Watford look likely to have a whopping 5 players involved in the Africa Cup of Nations and that could be telling for both clubs ambitions for the remainder of the season.

Leicester's form in general has been patchy as they struggle to meet the high standards of last season which saw them finish 5th in the league and lift the FA Cup. A good run could push them back towards the European spots again while more abject performances are likely to see them slip towards mid-table.

The Foxes will be hit hardest by the loss of Nigeria's Wilfred Ndidi who has established himself as one of the Premier League's best defensive midfielders in recent times. His work rate and tough tackling give the likes of James Maddison and others a license to attack and as a result he will be sorely missed.

Ndidi's natural replacement at Leicester is Nampalys Mendy who will also be travelling to AFCON with Senegal although the impact of his departure is less likely to be felt as he has spent most of the season out with a groin injury. In his place, Leicester have deployed Boubakary Soumaré the former French U21 international who himself could yet choose to represent Senegal in the future.

Leicester's other African contingent includes players who are not first choice picks in the Premier League. Daniel Amartey got some playing time earlier in the season but hasn't played in their last 4 Premier League fixtures while Kelechi Iheanacho generally gives Brendon Rodgers an option off the bench.

Despite losing so many players, one things in Leicester's favour is their fixture list during January with games against Norwich, Burnley and Brighton all represening opportunities to pick up points despite the exodus of players. Indeed, Leiecester will need to find wins from at least 2 of those games as well as hoping that they get their players back quickly and in one piece as February brings fixtures against Liverpool, West Ham and Chelsea as well as a resumption of the Europa League that will surely test the depth of their squad.

While Leicester will have their focus on who's above them in the league, Watford are certainly looking in the other direction. The Hornets are represented by more players of African origin than any other Premier League team and in many ways you could claim they've gotten off lightly by only losing 5 of them to AFCON.

Watford will be hardest hit by the loss of their 2 prime attacking threats in the form of Ismaila Sarr and Emmanuel Dennis (more on those 2 later). Having beaten Manchester United 4-1 in November in what was ultimately the final nail in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's coffin, the Hornets have gone onto lose 4 on the trott.

January brings 2 massive fixtures for Watford with games against 2 of the sides currently below them in the league in Norwich and Newcastle. To lose a group of key players for those 6 pointers would be difficult enough but add to that the fact that both those clubs as well as Leeds don't have any players travelling to Africa this winter and the impact on Watford and their hopes of survival this season look set to be massive!

Which Premier League club will lose the most key players to the African Cup of Nations?

Of course, while some of the players listed above are top performers for their clubs others are at best bench warmers. The table below shows how many key players each Premier League club will use. In this instance, a key player is one who has played 1000 or more minutes of first team football in all competitions during the 2021/22 season

When we cut down the list then to only those players who appear to be key members of their resepective squads the impact to the Premier League as a whole is not as great.

Sides like Aston Villa who are sending 3 players to AFCON will barely miss the likes of Trezeguet and Traore who don't seem to be a part of their manager's immediate plans while Arsenal who will also be represented by 3 players are losing the likes of Elneny and Pepe who have generally been used more in the Gunners run to the semi-finals of the League Cup than they have in the Premier League itself.

While Watford remain high on the list, the other club that looks most likely to be impacted by a loss of players to the African Cup of Nations is Crystal Palace who will lose 3 of their key players in Zaha, Kouyate and Ayew.

Patrick Viera has undoubtedly done a good job with a relatively small squad and budget but with just 1 league win in their last 7 matches it is not an ideal time to be losing players to their international teams.

Which team's goalscoring could be most impacted?

It's noticable that of the Premier League players being represented at the African Cup of Nations, a large proportion are forwards. 45% of all players from the EPL going to AFCON are forwards while that figure rises to 53% when considering only key players as defined above.

It's reasonable to assume then that the Africa Cup of Nations will have an impact on the goal threat that some teams carry over the next couple of months as detailed in the list below.

Again, Watford look to be in big trouble here with the bulk of their goal threat heading off to Cameroon in the not too distance future. The Hornets have the best goal scoring record of the teams that are within touching distance of them at the bottom of the league and again, they will sorely miss Sarr and Dennis in those must win games against Newcastle and Norwich in the second half of January.

Also towards the foot of the table, Burnley are going to have to compensate for the loss of their top scorer Maxwel Cornet who has netted 5 times for them in the league this season. Only Norwich and Wolves have scored fewer Premier League goals this season than Burnley so the Clarets will need to find a new source of goals if they are to pull away from the relegation battle.

Of course, the team losing the most stars to AFCON is Liverpool! Mo Salah and Sadio Mane are 2 of the best players in the league and their goals have lead Liverpool to multiple titles during their time at the club.

Liverpool would have known that this day was coming and moved to secure the services of Diogo Jota whose 10 Premier League goals this season puts him behind only Salah in the scoring charts. However, other than him, there are question marks about who will be able to fill the void left by Salah and Mane?

Roberto Firmino has also been a key member of the very potent Liverpool attack that Klopp has fielded but his goal output has never been on the same level of his African colleagues and he's struggled this season with a hamstring injury which might further impact Liverpool's chances of challenging in the league.

Elsewhere, Divock Origi's name will forever be etched in the history of the club and he is an excellent impact player off the bench but the fact remains that he hasn't started a Premier League match for 11 months and therefore it's difficult to know whether he has sufficient quality to lead the line on a match by match basis in the world's toughest league.

Simarly Takumi Minamino has been something of a bit part player since his transfer in 2019, making just 35 Premier League appearances the bulk of which have been off the bench. Indeed, when he has started of late it was during a loan spell at Southampton last season - he hasn't started a Premier League game for Liverpool for over a year!

Therefore, while their title challengers Man City are losing an equally gifted forward in Riyad Mahrez it seems less likely that the impact will be as great considering the multitude of options that Pep Guardiola has to choose from within his City squad.

Conclusions

To summarise briefly then, I'd expect the following impact on Premier League clubs over the next 6 weeks as a result of the African Cup of Nations.

• Liverpool's title challenge wanes
• Crystal Palace slide towards a relegation battle
• Watford and Burnley are unable to pull away from the foot of the table

Raw data taken from Transfermarkt and BBC Sport