It's the annual Christmas again, but for Premier League players, this festival has nothing to do with them.

The Premier League schedule between Christmas and New Year's Day is very tight. From December 23 to January 1, there are a total of four league games in eight days, an average of one every two days.

Such a dense schedule is definitely not a good thing for the players who have played for half a season and urgently need to take a break and catch their breath.

Too intensive a schedule will not only cause physical fatigue to the players, but is also likely to lead to injuries.

Many teams have been plagued by injuries due to the intensive schedule during this period. In addition, the physical confrontation in the Premier League is very intense and the refereeing standards are relatively loose, which makes the frequency of player injuries much higher than in other leagues.

Manchester City suffered a great loss because of this last season, and their lineup was almost never complete.

In addition, some teams will use this period of time to frantically rush for points in an attempt to narrow the gap between them and the top team.

Therefore, the teams ranked higher in the standings must not be careless.

There is a negative example in this regard, and that is Arsenal.

Arsenal basically performs well in the first half of every season, but their form starts to decline after a quick start at Christmas. At the end of the season, they were eliminated from the Champions League and no longer had to fight on multiple fronts. In addition, in order to secure a place in the Champions League next season, their form recovered and they finally managed to retain their fourth place.

Arsenal followed this process for nearly a decade until they botched it last year and finished in fifth place.

To deal with this situation, the best way is to make rotations in advance and reduce the consumption of main players as much as possible, so that they can have sufficient physical strength and condition to cope with the intensive schedule during this period.

Guardiola has been preparing for this since the beginning of the season, and the rotation of the team's core players, including forwards, midfielders and defenders, has never stopped.

Even Lin Quan, the absolute core of the team, was rotated for several games.

And thanks to Manchester City's strong offensive firepower, the outcome of many games has lost suspense after the first half. Therefore, Guardiola will replace the main players with substitutes early in the second half to further reduce the physical consumption of the main players and avoid injuries.

This means that Manchester City is in very good shape during Christmas this season, with almost no major injuries.

If some players feel unwell during training or the game, Guardiola will replace them immediately to avoid worsening of the injury.

Even if the team doctor finds nothing serious after the incident, he usually does not arrange for these players to play immediately. Instead, he will give them two or three days off to let them relax a little.

After the 19th round of the league, Guardiola gave the players a day off.

Although they are about to go away to face Newcastle United, the players still hope to stay with their families on such an important holiday as Christmas.

The team is in good momentum right now, so Guardiola naturally won't bother about such things.

But if this happens, the pre-match preparations will definitely be affected.

So in the match against Newcastle, in addition to using a large number of substitutes and rotating players, Guardiola also adjusted the team's formation, abandoning the 3142 formation and adopting a more traditional 433 formation.

In this game, all three lines of Manchester City were rotated. Jesus replaced Aguero on the front line, Mbappe continued to start, and Sane replaced David Silva.

In midfield, B Silva, Gundogan and Fernandinho replaced Lin Quan, De Bruyne and Kante.

As for the defense, Walker still starts, old captain Kompany and Rudiger partner up, and the other full-back is Danilo, who was introduced from Real Madrid last year.

After Danilo joined Manchester City, he did not play many times for Manchester City. This time he finally got the chance to start, which made him cherish it even more. He performed particularly hard on the court and was very active on both the offensive and defensive ends. His active figure could be seen everywhere on the entire left side.

This made Guardiola very satisfied with his performance, even a little surprised.

When the transfer was first made, Lin Quan expressed his pessimistic views, which indirectly affected Guardiola's views on Danilo.

He once wondered if he had bought a parallel import, but now it seems that this guy still has some strength and is not a parallel import.

But compared with Walker on the other side, Walker is indeed a lot worse.

Although it cost more than 52 million euros to bring in Kyle Walker, Guardiola now feels more and more that this deal is very cost-effective.

After Walker joined the team, Manchester City's defensive strength on the right side immediately rose to a higher level.

Kyle Walker's defensive ability is very outstanding. Not only does he have a fast turning speed and strong physical confrontation ability, but he also performs very well when dealing with inward wingers.

Not only that, Walker has excellent footwork and good offensive awareness. Not only can he pass a good ball, but he can also keenly capture the opportunity to attack, and make a fatal blow at the right time.

This guy is really an all-rounder! Facing the powerful and recently popular Manchester City, Newcastle's deployment can be described as cautious or even cowardly.

Playing at home, they actually lined up in a 541 formation, which was simply outrageous.

Facing the opponent's iron-clad defense, Manchester City's substitutes and rotation players had a very difficult time in the offensive battle.

In the first half, they tried to attack from various positions but found it difficult to create scoring opportunities.

After 45 minutes of play, both teams drew and no one scored a goal.

Judging from the scene, Manchester City firmly holds the initiative of the game.

The two sides had a huge disparity in ball possession in the first half, with Manchester City's possession rate exceeding 80%, and the ball almost never left their feet.

Such a high ball possession rate resulted in a large number of shooting opportunities. Manchester City fired 14 shots in the first half, but only two of them were on target.

Although Newcastle's goalkeeper was very busy, he only made two key saves.

Newcastle was quite satisfied with the score. After all, they set up such a solid defense in order to maintain a draw.

If they were to meet last season's Manchester City, they might have gone all out to fight the opponent with real swords and guns.

However, facing Manchester City, which has won 17 consecutive games so far, Newcastle has no way to confront the opponent head-on.

All the teams that had such ideas before became victims at the feet of Manchester City. They are not stupid and there is no need for them to follow in others' footsteps.

As long as Newcastle can tie with Manchester City and end the opponent's winning streak, their goal will be achieved. As for whether the scene is good or not, or whether they can score goals, these are not important.

The opponent's intention was very obvious, not to mention Manchester City's coaching staff, even the audience at the scene could see it.

In the stands of St. James' Park, thousands of Manchester City fans who traveled with the team would boo whenever they saw Newcastle get the ball, expressing their dissatisfaction with their cowardly behavior.

For football fans, the most annoying thing is this kind of boring draw where not a single goal is scored in the entire game. It makes people feel drowsy and they really can't muster up any energy.

Shortly after the start of the second half, seeing that the opponent was determined to continue parking the bus, Guardiola had no choice but to let the main players warm up and prepare to play.

Although he no longer cares about winning streak, Manchester City still cannot accept a draw in this game.

Once Newcastle drew with them, they tasted the sweetness.

The remaining mid- and lower-level teams will probably follow their example and use a solid defense to deal with them when they meet them in the league.

To be honest, the iron bucket formation is still very annoying.

Breaking through dense defense is a global problem. Although Manchester City is strong, it is difficult to break the opponent's turtle shell without some effort.

If every game consumes a huge amount of energy, they may not be able to withstand the consumption of fighting on multiple fronts.

It is not impossible that the team will collapse at that time.

So, this game must be won.

In the 55th minute, Guardiola made an early substitution.

De Bruyne comes on, replacing Kompany.

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Lin Quan came on and replaced Gundogan.

Ever since Lin Quan, De Bruyne and others appeared on the sidelines to warm up, the eyes of fans from both sides in the stands kept looking over there.

It seems that these people warming up on the sidelines are more interesting than the game that is going on.

At this time, seeing Lin Quan and De Bruyne, the twin stars of Manchester City, about to appear on the field, the mentality of the fans of both sides was completely different.

Every Manchester City fan was as excited as if they had been given a shot of adrenaline. Some fans who had been worried when they saw their team had been unable to break through the defense for a long time were now relieved.

Seeing these two people, they felt very relieved and had an inexplicable sense of security! As for the fans of the home team, after seeing these two people appear on the field together, they couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

A man's reputation is like a tree's shadow. The combination of Lin Quan and De Bruyne is one of the best offensive combinations in the whole football world. Either of them can make the opponent tremble.

If they play at the same time, the fans of the other team can only pray to God.

After the two came on the court, the effect was immediate.

Manchester City's attacking rhythm has become smoother and more deadly.

De Bruyne's penetrating passes, Lin Quan's passing and connecting in the frontcourt, and occasional breakthroughs all made Manchester City's offensive threat soar.

Newcastle's defense began to become a little hesitant.

In the 62nd minute, Manchester City made a wonderful cooperation in the frontcourt. After Lin Quan received the pass from B Silva, he dribbled into the penalty area, took a few steps diagonally, took away the opponent's two defenders, and then knocked the ball horizontally to the middle. Jesus who followed up easily scored the goal.

Manchester City finally broke the opponent's tortoise shell and took the lead.

After scoring the goal, Jesus excitedly rushed to the stands where the away fans gathered, raised his arms, and signaled the fans to cheer and applaud louder.

Manchester City fans cooperated very well and gave even louder applause and cheers, while the home team's fans sighed one by one.

While marveling at the strength of Manchester City, he was also feeling aggrieved about the goal conceded just now.

They had already persisted for more than 60 minutes. If they had held on for another half an hour, they would have ended Manchester City's winning streak. Unfortunately, they failed in the end.

Alas, Manchester City was just like them, an ordinary mid-to-lower-level team. Newcastle’s historical heritage is even stronger than Manchester City’s.

But after the Abu Dhabi consortium took over, Manchester City rose rapidly and has now become one of the Premier League giants and a well-known top team in the entire European football world.

Newcastle, on the other hand, is still in a slump and has not made any progress. I really don’t know when Newcastle will be able to rise as fast as Manchester City…

Facing dense defense, as long as we can score the first goal, the rest will be much easier.

If Newcastle does not want to accept defeat, they must attack. Once they attack, their iron defense will be broken, and Manchester City will have plenty of ways to deal with them.

However, what Manchester City did not expect was that Newcastle had no intention of winning at all.

After falling behind in the score, not only did they not launch a counterattack, but they further contracted their formation and continued to set up the iron bucket formation.

This made Manchester City feel very confused. If you are one goal behind and don't attack, aren't you afraid that we will waste time by passing the ball back and forth in the midfield? Newcastle was not afraid at all. Losing the game was no psychological pressure for them.

Manchester City is too strong this season. So many big and strong teams in the Premier League have all fallen to Manchester City. Who are they? Isn't it normal for them to lose? Even Liverpool, a strong team, lost to Manchester City by 6 goals! They never thought they could beat Manchester City. A draw was their biggest wish.

Now that this biggest hope has been shattered, Newcastle will just take a step back and just hope for a small loss without any tragedy. That's it.

The opponent showed no fighting spirit and aggressiveness. Manchester City thought about it after a while and realized that the opponent really didn't care about their time wasting, so they realized it.

Manchester City is helpless when faced with such a Buddhist opponent.

Therefore, they did not besiege each other as intensely as before.

Since the victory is already decided, why waste that energy? It is better to save the energy for the next game than to fight to the death with Newcastle who have already resigned themselves to their fate!

Fans of both teams strongly condemned the two teams' uninspiring behavior.

You all have started to play tacit football, then what are we watching?

The boos at the scene suddenly became louder. This time, not only Manchester City fans were booing, but the fans of the home team also turned against them.

As if sensing the fans' anger, Newcastle reluctantly launched several attacks.

As soon as Manchester City saw them move, they launched several counterattacks without any mercy.

Sane hit the post twice within three minutes, which made Newcastle players break out in a cold sweat. They quickly retreated and refused to attack no matter what.

Facing an opponent who had completely retreated, Sane put his hands on his hips and sighed.

His luck today was really bad. He had such a good chance, but he hit the goal post twice in a row. If he hadn't hit the post once, he would have scored a goal. (End of this chapter)