Chelsea could miss Mendy and Ziyech up to 8 games due to AFCON

The Africa Cup of Nations is set to take place from Jan 6th to Feb 6th in 2022, overlapping with part of the Premier League season.

Edouard Mendy and Hakim Ziyech will go away during that time to play for Senegal and it seems that this will lead to more missed time than initially anticipated.

It was initially thought that the players participating would leave after the game on Jan 2nd but The Athletic are reporting that they will leave as soon as Boxing Day.

This means that not only would the two players miss the Liverpool game, but also the Brighton game before it.

The report states that if a team makes it deep into the competition, the players might not return till late in the 2nd week of February.

This would see them miss Chelsea's games against Brighton and Arsenal in Feb as well in the worst case scenario, along with the Man City and Tottenham.

Additionally two FA Cup ties will also be missed in this scenario.