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Michael Essien's involvement with Ghana in next year's African Cup of Nations means Chelsea must make do without the influential midfielder's presence for several weeks, but the player believes the Blues will cope just fine.
Essien is one of a number of Chelsea representatives who will be present in Angola at the start of 2010. Salomon Kalou and Didier Drogba (both Ivory Coast) and John Obi Mikel (Nigeria) are also likely to be in attendance.
"As you can see, we've got a very big squad so they can cope without us and hopefully they will keep winning while we are away," Essien told BBC Sport.
"I love to represent my country and we can't change anything about that, we have to accept and go over with our countries and once we are finished we will come back to our clubs to do the job.
"I'm looking forward to it," Essien enthused. "I’ve never been to Angola so it's a new thing to me and I'm excited and looking forward to it and hopefully we can have a good tournament in Angola and win it.
"We've got some good players in the squad but we have to keep working hard and we will see what happens in Angola.
"We are in the two big tournaments and we did qualify easily (for the World Cup). For Ghana it's never been easy but we made it good and we will see what will happen."
Alan Dawson, Goal.com UK
