SOCCER:Didier Drogba's desire to play in next month's African Nations Cup may set him and his country on a collision course with Chelsea. The striker has a chronic knee condition that would benefit from surgery and though he has played through the pain for at least 12 months, Ivory Coast fear the club will press him to have an operation after the turn of the year, when they are due to lose him to international duty.

Avram Grant, the Chelsea manager, wants Drogba to lead the line against Sunderland in the league tomorrow and the Ivorians are concerned the player will be pushed through the busy December programme, which includes a game at Arsenal, before being declared unfit for the Nations Cup.

The tournament starts in Ghana on January 20th and runs until February 10th, and under Fifa rules clubs are obliged to release their players 15 days before it begins.

The Ivorians have refused compromise over release dates and Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, who will lose the defender Kolo Toure and midfielder Emmanuel Eboue to the biennial tournament, has labelled their attitude "stubborn".

Ivory Coast would take a dim view if Drogba, the African footballer of the year, were unavailable.

Drogba has suffered two lay-offs this season. He hurt the knee in training the day before the Community Shield against Manchester United and was only fit enough to be on the bench for the opening game of the Premier League season, and he damaged it again at Aston Villa on September 2nd and did not return until the end of that month.

Grant needs Drogba, who was Chelsea's top scorer last season with 33 goals and has struck nine in this campaign, as many as his fellow strikers Salomon Kalou, Claudio Pizarro and Andriy Shevchenko have managed between them.

When Drogba was on the sidelines in September, the team stuttered.

Chelsea have promised to do the right thing by Drogba and their medical department would not allow anything to jeopardise his long-term fitness, but Drogba will not countenance missing the Nations Cup. The Ivory Coast manager, Uli Stielike, describes him as "unquestionably the best penalty-box player in the world" and one of Stielike's assistants, Gerard Gili, who also coaches the country's under-23 team, enjoys a close relationship with Drogba.

Gili, who will take his team to the Beijing Olympics next summer, has said that Drogba will be one of his three overage players.

Drogba has been playing with knee pain for about a year, having regular treatment and scans.

His insistence on battling on has led to a worsening of a problem originally diagnosed as tendinitis; it now involves damage to the meniscus in the joint.

An operation would ease his suffering but not eradicate the pain.

Drogba was able to rest after his setback against Villa but when he returned against Fulham on September 29th he again felt the discomfort. He fears he will never be entirely free of pain but the timing of any operation is fraught with complications.

Chelsea's visit to Arsenal on December 16th stands out as particularly important for the club, a point made by the goalkeeper Petr Cech, who hopes to return from injury to face Sunderland tomorrow at the expense of Carlo Cudicini.

"We entered this season to get our title back," he said.

"We are six points behind Arsenal but there is a game coming against them so we can close the gap."

Cech believes he is ready after a calf injury. "I have been training really hard to come back," he said. "I couldn't make it against West Ham last weekend but hope to play on Saturday." Guardian Service