Champions League: Manchester City Face Travel Hurdles

Defending champions, Manchester City, have been hit by travel disruption ahead of their Champions League trip to RB Leipzig.

Pep Guardiola-led side were due to land in Leipzig on Tuesday afternoon ahead of a match slated for Wednesday but their departure from Manchester airport was delayed because of a severe wind warning.

The warning has been issued for Leipzig until midnight on Tuesday. City are due to play the Bundesliga club in a Group G clash at Red Bull Arena on Wednesday.

The club are hopeful of arriving in Germany on Tuesday night but were forced to move their media commitments, which were due to be held at Leipzig’s stadium, to Manchester.

“It’s fly safe and land safe, that’s the important thing,” Guardiola told a news conference, conducted over Zoom from Manchester.

“It’s not at 7pm, you have to do it at 9pm and it’s not a problem. The authorities said it was so risky to fly before so that’s why we made the training session longer and the lunch longer. We have time to rest and now we are going to fly to Germany.”

ESPN reports that City’s players trained at their CFA training base on Tuesday morning with both Bernardo Silva and John Stones present. Silva last played on Sept. 19, while Stones hasn’t featured for either club or country since the Community Shield defeat on Aug. 30.

City are the second Premier League team to endure travel problems this week. Arsenal were stuck at Luton airport on Monday ahead of their Champions League match against RC Lens.

Bad weather around Luton meant Mikel Arteta and his squad were stuck at the airport for almost five hours before finally making it to France.

Guardiola highlighted travel problems ahead of City’s Carabao Cup defeat to Newcastle last week. City were forced to take a bus back to Manchester after the game because no planes were available.

That defeat to Newcastle was followed by a shock Premier League loss at Wolves – marking only the fifth time Guardiola has suffered consecutive defeats in more than seven years at the Etihad Stadium.