When Manchester City welcome Chelsea to the Etihad Stadium for an FA Cup third round clash on January 8, Pep Guardiola is likely to field a strong team.
The late Sunday afternoon fixture will see City launch an offensive on a fourth front, having already made good progress in the Premier League, Champions League and League Cup so far this season.
Guardiola has always promised that City will fight on every front, and that he does not consider any competition unimportant when compared to the others. That, combined with the fact that Pep has plenty of high-quality players at his disposal, means that he rarely makes wholesale changes to his line-ups with future fixtures in mind.
Guardiola's predecessor at City, Manuel Pellegrini, was of a similar opinion. It was not in the Chilean manager's nature to pick and chose competitions, but in early 2016 there was a moment when he cracked.
In the weeks leading up to City's FA Cup fifth-round trip to Chelsea in late February 2016, Pellegrini launched an unexpected and uncharacteristic attack on the powers that be in English football. The topic was fixture scheduling, and it became clear that Pellegrini was not going to get his way.
The fixtures were piling up, and the issue was that the match was moved to Sunday February 21 for policing and broadcasting reasons. City had already arrangements to fly to Ukraine the following day ahead of a Champions League last-16 first-leg clash with Dynamo Kyiv, and the following weekend they had the small matter of a League Cup final against Liverpool to deal with.
Injuries to senior players including Kevin de Bruyne, Bacary Sagna, Jesus Navas, Wilfried Bony, Samir Nasri, Fabian Delph and Eliaquim Mangala meant City had just 13 fit senior outfield players. Pellegrini was put in the unenviable position of having to either risk his fit stars - including Sergio Aguero, David Silva and Vincent Kompany - or rest them and deal with the consequences.
"We always try to play with a strong team in every competition – every competition is important, especially the FA Cup," the manager said ahead of the game.
"We have had two difficult draws against Premier League teams in the two rounds before, but we won 4-0 and 3-0, so we are very interested in continuing in this cup. But we must prioritise the Champions League. The priority is [usually] the next game but maybe we are going to make an exception now because of the amount of players we have injured.
"I said a couple of weeks ago if you want to protect the English team in the Champions League the game was [played on] Saturday – but for different reasons we couldn’t play that day."
Add to that the fact that progression in the cup would have necessitated the re-scheduling of three Premier League fixtures in an already packed schedule, and Pellegrini's mind was made up.
The result was City's heaviest-ever FA Cup defeat, a youthful side drubbed 5-1 by a ruthless and experienced Chelsea. The starting XI selected by Pellegrini at Stamford Bridge resembled that of an U21s side, with five teenagers making their full debuts.
Tosin Adarabioyo's (18) first assignment in senior football was to take care of Diego Costa, while Manu Garcia, Aleix Garcia (both 18) and Bersant Celina (19) joined 28-year-old veteran Fernando in midfield. David Faupala, 10 days on from turning 19, started up-front alongside the relatively experienced Kelechi Iheanacho.
To be fair to the kids, in the first half it looked as though they were capable of pulling off one of the most improbable results in club history. Inside the opening minutes the Frenchman came close to scoring an incredible goal, nutmegging both Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic before drawing a good save out of Thibaut Courtois.
Costa broke the deadlock 10 minutes before half-time, but almost immediately Faupala hit back. The teenager bundled the ball home from close range to cap a superb team move that saw Manu Garcia give-and-go and play in Iheanacho before the Nigerian squared.
The second half did not go so well, but it was hardly the fault of the kids. It's no exaggeration to say that Willy Caballero (34), Martin Demichelis (35) and Fernando were dreadful, with each playing a part in the four goals City conceded after the interval. Cameron Humphreys (17) and Brandon Barker (19) made cameo appearances from the bench and were comfortably better.
The final score suggested that Pellegrini's decision had backfired spectacularly, but after the final whistle he held his ground.
"We were forced to select that team, we couldn't play another day and didn't have any more fit players," he said. "We knew it was a difficult chance to carry on in the FA Cup. We cannot do anything more."
So, was it worth it? Goals from Aguero, Silva and Yaya Toure earned City a 3-1 win in Kyiv three days later, and after just two days of rest and preparation the Blues clinched the League Cup via a penalty shootout at Wembley.
However, while the final months of Pellegrini's reign did bring a run to the semi-finals of the Champions League, City's title challenge was effectively ended a couple of weeks later by a 3-0 loss to Liverpool.
None of the seven debutants that featured at Stamford Bridge are still at the club, with Adarabioyo the only one to go on to make as many as seven more appearances in sky blue. Having joined Fulham in 2020, the defender is also the only player to currently be playing Premier League football.
Whatever happens at the Etihad, supporters are unlikely to witness anything as bizarre as what the travelling fans did back in February 2016.
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