Man City's Manuel Pellegrini vows to field weak team if FA Cup date fixed - 7M sport

Man City's Manuel Pellegrini vows to field weak team if FA Cup date fixed



Posted Saturday, February 06, 2016 by ESPN

Manuel Pellegrini threatened to play a young side if Man City's FA Cup fifth-round tie at Chelsea remains on a Sunday.

After the manager spoke, the FA confirmed that the game will indeed be played on Sunday, Feb. 21, to accommodate a broadcast by the BBC at 4 p.m.

Pellegrini, though, would rather the game be played on the Saturday before as originally planned or moved to the Friday night, since City are planning to travel to Ukraine on Monday, Feb. 22, ahead of the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie against Dynamo Kiev on Feb. 24.

That in turn comes just four days before the Capital One Cup final against Liverpool at Wembley.

The matter is complicated, however, because Chelsea's neighbours Fulham play in the Championship at 3 p.m. on that Saturday and police would be unwilling to sanction another kick-off close to that time.

Playing on Friday, Feb. 19, was another possibility, but that might have run the risk of complaints from Chelsea who play in the Champions League themselves at Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

Man City's Manuel Pellegrini vows to field weak team if FA Cup date fixed
Man City are scheduled to face Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round after beating Aston Villa last weekend.

Pellegrini said: "I'm very worried for a lot of things. First and foremost, if we have to play that game on that Sunday, we will not play with our [full-strength] team, we will play with a young team.

"We have to travel to Ukraine on Monday, so I don't see any reason why we can't play on the Saturday. Chelsea play their Champions League game on the Tuesday before.

"So if we have to play on the Sunday, we will have to see which players will have to play.

"I don't want to analyse why, but I think if we have to play against Chelsea four days before, we should play on the Saturday.



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