Manchester City forward Antoine Semenyo has withdrawn from the Ghana squad for their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying matches against the Ivory Coast and The Gambia. The 26-year-old requires treatment for a swollen leg after acknowledging he was 'battered and bruised' following the Premier League match against Sunderland.
Impressive performance against Sunderland
Semenyo assisted City's second goal before scoring their third and fourth in the 5-3 win last weekend. That performance earned him the Premier League player of the match award. However, that will now be his last game for three weeks. His return for City could come against Liverpool at Anfield, should he recover in time.
Ghana FA president explains decision
Ghana Football Association president Kurt Okraku said on Asempa FM: "Antoine [Semenyo] and the coach [Carlos Queiroz] spoke."
"He told the coach, 'If you need me, I will come down for the medical team to re-examine me, but the truth is that my leg is swollen, and we need to treat it.'"
"As a leader, if you want to know your players, and in this particular case, we know the players and how honest they are when it comes to situations like this, you'd have to ask yourself whether you'd allow Antoine to continue with his recovery and be ready for Man City and for Ghana during the next window, or have Antoine fly down to Ghana to undergo an MRI and then ask him to go back because he can't play, his leg is swollen."
Key player for club and country
The former Bournemouth winger is one of just five City players to be on the pitch for every minute of their opening five Premier League matches. Erling Haaland, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Marc Guehi and Ruben Dias are the others.
As with those four, he was also rested for their Carabao Cup third round tie against Norwich City. Donnarumma, Guehi and Semenyo were all unused substitutes, while Dias and Haaland were left out of the squad entirely. The Ghanaian was, however, substituted midway through the second half of their first Champions League group phase match. City led 1-0 away against Porto at the time before Haaland doubled their advantage with his second goal late on.
Semenyo played every minute for his country at this summer's World Cup, where they notably drew 0-0 with England. After reaching the last 32 as one of the best third-place teams, they lost 1-0 to Colombia.
The Black Stars did not qualify for last year's AFCON. Ghana finished bottom of Group F, below Angola, Niger and Sudan without winning a game. They are four-time AFCON winners, but the last of those successes came in 1982. That is one fewer than the number of times they have been runners-up, most recently in 2015, although they have not got out of their group in the last two editions they qualified for.
