WHY SAY ANYTHING?

It’s a bit of a rhetorical question as it is a situation unlikely to happen to ALL of them, and certainly not at the same time, but we like to speculate and it is quite interesting to debate which one would suffer the most.

The obvious caveat here is that it depends upon the games the player in question is likely to miss. Will they be title deciders against big clubs or just end of the season run-outs with little or no meaning?

So we have assumed that, when they lose the player in question, all six have a run of games identical in importance to each other. See if you agree with our choices.

Arsenal:   

Stubborn old man doesn’t seem to have a stand-out player at the moment and, as they are playing only reasonably well, the only player they are really missing is one who is not yet at the club, whoever that may be.

Having said that, Alexis Sánchez is, without doubt, their most influential player. When he plays well, Arsenal generally play well. If he goes missing then so do Arsenal’s chances of winning, usually anyway.

So, for us, it’s Sánchez as far as Arsenal are concerned and, probably as of January, we will discover how much they will miss him when he leaves.

Chelsea:

Again there is no obvious single candidate here as they have a couple of players who are almost invaluable to the team.

In all honesty this one was a toss of the coin between N’Golo Kanté and Eden Hazard. We think Hazard just gets the vote over Kanté because of his ability to turn a game and win it almost single-handedly.

Chelsea had a great team before either of these players joined the club but, between the two midfielders, it is Hazard who has improved them the most so he is the player Chelsea could least do without.

Liverpool:

Philippe Coutinho or Sadio Mané. Those were the two under discussion when we reached Liverpool.

As with Sánchez at Arsenal, January may very well see the departure of Coutinho and we can then judge what a great player he was for Liverpool. He has, however, missed games before through injury, as has his team mate Sadio Mané and, of the two, we feel that Mané’s loss has had the greater negative effect on the team.

On arriving from Southampton he quickly established himself as the biggest goal threat and a crowd favourite and is another of those players whose loss results in the team winning less games.

Manchester City:

This is a difficult one because the obvious candidates are the likes of Vincent Kompany, their influential captain, or Sergio Agüero, their soon-to-be record goalscorer.

The problem here is that City have such a good squad that, this season in particular, these two players aren’t being missed when they don’t play.

The one stand-out however has to be Kevin De Bruyne. He has become almost undroppable even for Pep Guardiola, a manager who doesn’t normally care about form or reputation.

City, quite simply, are not quite as good a team when he is not playing.

Manchester United:

Who would United miss the most? Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his 28 goals in 46 matches? Paul Pogba with his strength and power in midfield?

These two players have both been out for a while and it is unlikely that either one of them would have made a massive difference to the way United have performed lately.

Yes, they would have provided some sadly missing leadership but whether they could have transformed either the perfomance against Liverpool or the one against Huddersfield into anything resembling good is debatable.

Long term, the man Manchester United would miss the most is David De Gea.

Whilst it cannot be argued that Sergio Romero has always been a reliable back-up, therein also lies the problem. The impression we get is that he couldn’t maintain a consistently high standard of keeping over a lengthy period of games.

The proof of this will be seen if De Gea leaves. United will go and buy another goalkeeper to be number one and Romero will remain as number two.

Tottenham Hotspur:

This is the easiest one of the lot! Harry Kane, as we write, is injured and will miss the game against Manchester United. He also missed the Carabao Cup defeat by West Ham United.

His importance to the team is reflected in the newspaper headlines which report how happy Manchester United must be that he is injured.

This is probably untrue as we are pretty sure that United would rather have Pogba, Ibrahimovic, Rojo, Fellaini and Carrick available to play and an uninjured Kane in the Spurs team!

Depending upon how long his injury keeps him out we may be about to find out how much Tottenham have come to rely on Harry Kane but, as of this moment in time, it seems to be quite a significant amount!