Ahead of the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations, Belgian league side, KAA Gent faces the challenge of missing key players including Nigeria’s Jordan Torunarigha, Mohamed Soumah, Tarik Tissoudali, Noah Fadiga, and Nurio Fortuna.

Torunarigha is among the 41 players that made Jose Peseiro’s Super Eagles provisional squad.

Should Peseiro pick him for the tournament proper, the 26-year-old could be away for more than a month.

Addressing the press, Head Coach Hein Vanhaezebrouck, acknowledged the imminent departure of Torunarigha and other African players will affect his team and revealed plans for the winter transfer window.

“We’ve been working on this for six months. We are prepared. We’ll navigate through that period as best as possible, but it’s true that the squad will become thinner,” he stated confidently.

When questioned about his the timing of the Cup of Nations, Vanhaezebrouck said:

“It’s not with clammy hands. We have a number of ideas, but it remains to be seen whether they can all be realized.”

“If you almost always play with the same seventeen players, you’ll run into problems if five or six of them leave. Getting through a month or more with eleven seems very difficult. We hope that something can be added,” he concluded.​