City To Play Hamburg On 21st January In The UAE.

[Chippy_boy]

This is a joke right? Why are we playing a friendly during our most crucial month in the league to date? Okay, it's fine if we are just playing the kids, but if we play the likes of Aguero, Silva, Kompany etc then stupid move by city! Has the club said why they are doing it?

No joke, it's warm weather training PR and a run around what's the problem

I was about to say are you mad, but I had it in my head that the Chelsea game is 3 days later. Actually is the weekend after, isn't it.

So "only" Middlesborough in the cup to worry about.

I'd have preferred it if the Hamburg game wasn't on, but I guess it's not too terrible.

 

[grim up north]

This is a joke right? Why are we playing a friendly during our most crucial month in the league to date? Okay, it's fine if we are just playing the kids, but if we play the likes of Aguero, Silva, Kompany etc then stupid move by city! Has the club said why they are doing it?

No joke, it's warm weather training PR and a run around what's the problem

A number of things; a long haul round trip flight midweek (means we won't be training much on Tuesday or Thursday), a friendly match against another professional side which isn't warm weather training - it's going to have more of a competitive edge than training would.

One of our key players gets injured in this match and just wait for the meltdown on here!

They won't be flying Easy Jet. The friendly will be exactly what it says on the tin, a friendly training game The other team won't want injuries. Players get injured all the time in training so it doesn't really matter where they are.

This is just a other vehicle for somebody to have a moan

 

[daveyboybluemoon]

When looking at the details for the Cityzens comp, it says you fly with the team & the details were,

Fly out Sunday night after the Arsenal game, so they will get there Monday morning. I imagaine a light session over there as would be normal the day after a game anyway.

Tuesday is the open training session so train as normal as they would here

Wednesday the game, those playing get a run out, those rested i imagine do a normal training session in the day

The only down side is don't think they get back till Friday evening (if the competition winners are coming back on the same plane as the First team)

 

[Marvin]

This is OK, but I'm more bothered about the travel in pre-season. I'm more or less certain we dropped a significant number of points at the start of the season because our pre-season preparation wasn't the best.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Bersant Celina ‏@BersantCelina · 5m5 minutes ago
On my way to Abu Dhabi with the first team

 

[bluemoon98]

Just showed on SSN the squad at Manchester airport

 

[FantasyIreland]

Mark Booth ‏@markbooth_mcfc · 59s59 seconds ago
Good luck to @BrandonBarker96, @BersantCelina, @GeorgeEvans70 and @thierryambrose who go with the first-team to Abu Dhabi

 

[ctidcarl]

I think with todays performance, one or two of our players minds were already in Abu Dhabi.

Hopefully the trip will give players a "break" and galvanize the team to come back in a strong frame of mind

 

[BigOscar]

Perfect opportunity for the team to get the Arsenal game out of their system and for the young players to show they are worth trying in the second half of the season. Pre-season was a long time ago for some of these kids and they've come a long way, this is their chance to show how far they've come.

 

[Bentheblue]

Would be nice if they can find time to work on corners and defending free kicks!