Man City Tempting Fate with Late Arrival Ahead of FA Cup Tie vs. Middlesbrough

Manchester City’s midseason training camp in Abu Dhabi looks set to impact their FA Cup campaign with the news their return flight won’t land in Manchester until 6 p.m. on Friday evening.

According to Chris Wheeler of the Daily Mail, City had the option of returning on Thursday evening, but Manuel Pellegrini preferred to keep his players an extra day so a training session on Friday morning could take place before their departure.

With City set to take on Middlesbrough in their fourth-round tie at the Etihad at 3 p.m. on Saturday, it gives Pellegrini’s players just 21 hours to recover and prepare for the match.  

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City’s players will go straight from the airport to the club’s new world-class training campus, where accommodation is provided and recuperation will be their primary concern.

It remains to be seen whether or not the decision to go to Abu Dhabi to play a friendly and enjoy some warm-weather training will adversely affect City’s players and staff ahead of their FA Cup tie, but, on the surface, it certainly appears problematic.

Players need time to rest and recover after a long flight, and although City’s players will be treated to the very best travel conditions, landing just 21 hours before kick-off seems bizarre.

Along with Frank Lampard’s injury scare, this late arrival back into the UK has raised questions about the logic of a midseason trip to the Middle East.

It is often argued that players are expected to play and travel too much, a situation which leads to an increased risk of injury and tiredness. City are likely to have handled everything as professionally and carefully as possible, yet there is surely a risk involved with such fine margins.

Middlesbrough, who lie second in the Championship and arrive in fine form, will face a pressure-free situation when they line up at the Etihad for Saturday’s game.

Few expect them to get a result, but given the freedom they are playing with under manager Aitor Karanka, they may well fancy an upset.

City have shown under Pellegrini that they are capable of being unsettled by so-called lesser lights, struggling against Watford in the FA Cup last season before being knocked out by Wigan in the quarter-final, a result which ended Pellegrini’s quest for an unprecedented domestic treble.

Add to that the narrow win over Sheffield Wednesday in the last round and the League Cup defeat at the hands of a second-string Newcastle United side earlier in the season, and it becomes clear that City should be taking nothing for granted this weekend.

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Pellegrini is capable of making history this season, though. Only one foreign manager, Jose Mourinho, has ever won all three domestic trophies in England, and it took him three seasons to complete the set during his first stint as Chelsea boss.

Winning the Premier League and League Cup in his first season on these shores, Pellegrini is in a position to do it in two seasons and become the quickest foreign coach to ever assemble the full set of English trophies.

That would be a remarkable achievement, one worthy of significant praise, but the task of beating in-form Middlesbrough this weekend has surely been made more difficult than it needed to be by the club’s decision to travel to Abu Dhabi midseason.

Rob Pollard is Bleacher Report's lead Manchester City correspondent and will be following the club from a Manchester base throughout the 2014-15 season. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter: @RobPollard