I think you'll be alright for AFCON. Bentancur is back, Hojbjerg is hardly a slouch (and not too dissimilar to Gallagher, who Postecoglou wanted). January is a relatively nice time to lose them too, with not many PL games, no EFL cup semi, and a potentially easy FA Cup draw.
There's also a good chance that most of your other players will be back then. Even just getting Romero back after a few games will put you back into a good position. With no Europe or EFL Cup I don't think you'll be in too bad a position for December.
Just jumping on this comment to say that this article is published every year with a slightly different wording. Every year football is going to try sin bins or orange cards and a few weeks later we hear nothing more.