6 players that will be missed the most during African Cup of Nations

#2 Spurs -Nabil Bentaleb

Having first introduced by Tim Sherwood as a second-half substitute against the Saints last season, Bentaleb has an outstanding record his season with Spurs winning 64 percent of their Premier League matches with the midfielder in the side compared to just 33 percent without him.

Having chosen to represent The Desert Warriors, Algeria starts their AFCON campaign on the 19th of January against South Africa with Ghana on the 23rd followed by Senegal on the 27th, meaning the 20-year-old midfielder to miss a minimum of further four matches.

Already having missed the 2-1 away loss to Crystal Palace and the 4-2 win over Burnley in the FA Cup 4th Round replay, Bentaleb whove played for an aggregate 848 minutes with 635 successful passes while conquering the Spurs midfield will miss the semi-final of the Capital One Cup against Sheffield United, the Premier League clash with Southampton and the 5th round FA Cup tie against Leicester City.

Contrastingly, if Algeria goes all the way into the final of the African Cup of Nations to be held on the 8th of February, Spurs will go on to miss the midfielder for a total of six games with the games against Hull City and Stoke, included.

However, the unavailability of Bentaleb seems like to be no headache for Pochettino. Already having four players in the name of Mousa Dembele, Paulinho, Etienne Capoue and Benjamin Stambouli that cost Spurs a combined fee of around 46m will fight it out for Bentalebs position