The reaction has been understated, to say the least. When the plane carrying Manchester City's players touched down at Abu Dhabi airport there was no welcoming committee as such. No television crews, no autograph hunters, nobody flashing cameras in the players' faces, no police escort to whisk them to the seven-star opulence of the Emirates Palace hotel. A scattering of locals were there to see them train for the first time last night – but only a scattering.
They are here for a training camp, to get away from the Mancunian climate and play a friendly against the United Arab Emirates national team tomorrow night in what will eventually become an annual fixture at the Zayed Sports City, certainly as long as the sheikhs of Abu Dhabi's ruling Nahyan family, the richest men on earth (sitting on 9% of the planet's oil reserves) are bankrolling the club.
The ground will be full, the last of the 26,000 tickets being distributed on Monday, but the players have been able to walk unnoticed through the vertiginous shopping malls that line the eight-lane highways here and, at times, it has evoked memories of when Manchester United tried to crack the United States in 2003, a tour notable for Sir Bobby Charlton being introduced to the crowd as Bobby Carlton, games being interrupted for weather reports and the announcement of disallowed goals, and being told at the New York Giants Stadium that Ryan Giggs had won 486 caps in his 32-year career.
The difference, of course, is that City are not here to crack Abu Dhabi because, quite simply, they already have enough zeros in their bank account. It is about getting some warm weather on their backs and maybe, too, some team bonding among a newly assembled group of players who have been fragmented by cliques during the more troubled moments of Mark Hughes's 17 months since replacing Sven‑Goran Eriksson as manager.
It has been a difficult process for Hughes, removing the players he felt were undermining his authority and it has led to the situation where Robinho, without Elano Blumer, Jô and Gláuber Berti, is now telling his advisers he feels so isolated and unhappy he cannot tolerate staying in Manchester beyond January. The Brazilian has not disrupted the club's sunshine break as spectacularly as the trip to Tenerife in January when he flew to Rio without informing his employers, but it is still an issue that suggests there is a long way to go before Hughes has fostered the sense of togetherness he craves from his players.
Stephen Ireland remembers the dressing room as being "cliquey" in Hughes's first season in charge, and that the manager took "some time to get a grip of the club". Elano, who was so close to Robinho they have been described as "long-lost twins", was a key agitator. He, Jô and Robinho were all fined for various indiscretions.
"He [Hughes] had it tough," Ireland recalls. "Some players didn't want to be there. Some players just didn't want to buy into it. Elano and Jô, they didn't want to put in the extra effort and it wasn't like it was that hard. It wasn't like you were being run like a dog, just that it was more professional and more based on team spirit, and these players didn't want to get into that stuff."
Elano was subsequently sold to Galatasaray. "Under Sven, Elano got away with anything," Ireland continues. "It was Elano's world, to be honest. The gaffer came in and there were massive changes, and Elano couldn't adjust. He's a great guy, a nice guy, I got on great with him, and he's a very talented player, but he could have added a lot more to his game and been a lot better than what he is."
"It was a shame because I am sure they [Elano and Jô] will look back and regret it. Even with Elano, he didn't play too often last year but when he did play, he did improve. He might not say that himself, but he added an awful lot to his game, which I think was down to the gaffer – but I don't think Elano would admit that or even realise it."
Ireland fits very much into the pro-Hughes camp. "He had to come into a club that had been damaged down the years, with players not having a winning mentality, people accepting defeat, accepting losing away from home, accepting things that just weren't right. Mark Hughes came in with his own staff and worked to make that right. The first meeting the gaffer ever had was about what we [the management] are going to offer you [the players] and the advice was to get on board. They said: 'If you do, you won't have problems, but if you choose not to you will find it very tough'."
A recent training session began at 2pm but Ireland found himself arriving for work at 11.20am. "You feel you just want to be there. Sven was a lovely guy, a very good person, I got on great with him, but for where City are aiming to go, you definitely need a manager like Mark Hughes. With Sven, you would turn up at 9.25am, train at 9.30am and be gone back home at 11.30am; you just wanted to get back as quickly as possible."
This is the disappointment for Hughes: that Robinho is not, it seems, willing to buy into the new regime when he believes there are greater adventures to be had at Barcelona. He was the first player to sign up to the Abu Dhabi revolution but when the sheikhs take their seats in the royal box tomorrow he will be missing because of his injured ankle and, despite the denials, there is every chance this fixture will have to get used to going ahead without him in future years.
