Advantage Man City as title rivals prepare to lose key players

LONDON : Manchester City could have an advantage in the Premier League title race through January as their rivals face up to losing key players to the African Cup of Nations and Asia Cup.

As the Premier League emerges from a frantic set of festive fixtures with only six points separating the top five, managers will be busy drawing up contingency plans.

Some will likely deem it necessary to dip in to the transfer market to make up for the loss of some top performers.

But while Liverpool will lose Egyptian Mohamed Salah and Tottenham Hotspur will have to make do without South Korea's Son Heung-min, champions Manchester City will be unaffected.

City manager Pep Guardiola does not have a single player jetting off to either the Ivory Coast or Qatar for the continental tournaments that start on Jan. 13 and Jan. 12 respectively and run for almost a month.

Leaders Liverpool, who head Aston Villa by three points after their win over Newcastle United on Monday, will wave goodbye to Salah who with 14 goals is the joint-top scorer in the Premier League this season, equal with Erling Haaland.

They will also be missing combative midfielder Wataru Endo who will join up with Japan.

"It's a bit of a shame how he found his feet and now he goes to the Asian Cup," manager Juergen Klopp said.

Surprise title challengers Villa will only lose squad player Bertrand Traore to Burkina Faso but fourth-placed Arsenal will be harder hit with Mohamed Elneny (Egypt), Thomas Partey (Ghana) and Takehiro Tomiyasu (Japan) all heading off for an unspecified amount of time, depending on the progress of their nations.

Tottenham have been bedevilled by injuries in the last couple of months and now manager Ange Postecoglou will have to adapt to captain Son, who has