After Christmas, the eyes of many media and fans are focused on the 'Christmas War', and the FA's arrangement of the event is very commercial, and every Christmas, a round of giant matchups will be arranged to attract attention.

This year's home game is Arsenal's home game against Chelsea.

Arsenal was second in the league last season, Chelsea is the defending champions, the two teams meet at this time, enough to attract huge attention, the only regret is that so far Arsenal results are not very good, only ranked fourth in the league, but also make the publicity gimmick a lot less, if it is replaced by Manchester United and Chelsea, it will definitely become more eye-catching.

As a 'dark horse' team, Millwall is much more low-key.

On Christmas Day, Millwall trained for half a day, mainly to prepare for tomorrow's game, and in the afternoon the whole team had a holiday, which was to allow the players to spend Christmas night with their families.

The next morning, all the players gathered.

It was the 'Christmas Match', and Millwall went to Port City in the south of England to challenge Portsmouth away.

Millwall didn't have time to prepare, the only thing that could be called preparation was that the coaching staff analysed together which players were going to be out for a round and the other players could be properly arranged.

This is the main job before Christmas.

Not just this one, but also the next two games, Millwall must make sure that the key players are informed before the Chelsea game.

Some may think that the game against Chelsea is only a league game and can be abandoned.

In reality, this is not the case.

Millwall and Chelsea are direct competitors, even if the outside world thinks that Millwall is difficult to compete for the league title, but as long as there is a chance, you must work hard for it, and Chelsea's head-to-head confrontation is very important, not only a round of the league, three points thing, but also the impact of the morale of the whole team, if you don't resist losing to the opponent, it will definitely have a huge impact on morale, and its influence may continue in the next season, going head-to-head to win the game, it will become a very good impact, such as: beating the opponent head-on, You can make the opponent drop three points.

Millwall dropped three points, but it wasn't really a big deal.

Chelsea are different.

It's all because of Chelsea's results.

Chelsea's results are so good that since the defeat away to Manchester United in the league, Chelsea have been winning all of them until now, if they can't stop Chelsea head-on, how can they compete against an opponent who 'doesn't drop points'?

The players will not be confident!

Zhang Yang attaches great importance to playing against Chelsea, not only as a matter of team competition, but also against the world's top manager, Jose Mourinho, which is also a very challenging thing.

That's a chance for the team and it's an opportunity for him personally.

In order to preserve the strength before playing against Chelsea, in the first few rounds of the league, it is necessary to let some substitutes play, and in the next three league games, Millwall's starting lineup is basically not selected.

The first opponent is Portsmouth.

Portsmouth has always been a relegation team, last season Portsmouth was able to escape relegation, but the gap with Crystal Palace is only two games, the new season manager Palin talked about the goal, and also made it very clear, "We want to try to keep the Premier League place!" "So far, Portsmouth are fifth from bottom in the league, which proves that they can only survive relegation.

Coach Perrin is a very practical coach, he did not boast about fighting for good results, so far in the season, even when he won the game against Liverpool, he is still very low-key in front of media reporters, and everything is done for relegation.

It's pretty much the same.

Zhang Yang has been talking about relegation, but Millwall's results are ...... Ahem...... It's really unconvincing.

Before the start of the game, Zhang Yang also said, "I hope to beat Portsmouth so that we have a better chance of avoiding relegation." ”

The media reporters didn't bother to complain.

Zhang Yang doesn't care what the reporters think, the media has been 'helping' Millwall to talk about relegation at the beginning of the season, and now that the league is almost halfway through, he naturally has to 'obediently' talk about relegation, as for whether the reporter wants to hear it, he doesn't care at all.

However, the course of the game proved that Millwall was much better than the relegation team.

Portsmouth sat at home, and it was only Millwall's 'semi-substitute line-up', but the situation was still suppressed, and they could not play a little advantage at all, and in the end Millwall won 0-1 away to Portsmouth thanks to Jody Morris's long-range goal.

After watching the whole game, Zhang Yang also exhaled lightly.

Even if the team's situation is in crisis, they have not yet reached the point of relegation, and their strength is much better than that of the relegation team.

This gave the whole team some confidence.

In recent games, whether it is Everton, Newcastle United, or Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United some time ago, they are the suppressed side in every game, and even if they win the game, the process is very difficult.

That kind of game is quite tiring.

Now with a semi-bench against Portsmouth, they have played quite the edge and they have finally found some confidence.

Two days later, in the 18th round of the Premier League, Millwall host Wigan Athletic.

It was another easy game.

Wigan Athletic is also this season's promoted horses, their performance is not bad, the ninth place in the league says a lot of things, a promoted horse can be in the middle of the league, it is a surprising thing, most of the promoted horses in their first season, are to fight for relegation, not to mention, Wigan Athletic, like Millwall, are promoted to the Premier League for the first time in history.

Compared with Millwall's performance that is not weaker than the giants, Wigan Athletic is not a little worse.

Head coach Jewell understands the gap between the two sides.

In terms of squad strength, Wigan Athletic is not better than Millwall; In terms of season performance, the two sides are not comparable at all; Coupled with the fact that Millwall is playing at home, Wigan Athletic's chances of winning are too slim.

This one was a game that was abandoned by Wigan Athletic.

Wigan Athletic also have a huge bench depth problem, and if they want to achieve a better position, they will have to give up some games appropriately to give the main players plenty of rest.

When many media expected 'two very good promoted horses' to spark, they found that both teams were all on the bench.

Wigan Athletic needless to say.

Millwall also had a semi-bench line-up, which was a little more flashy up front, with Mitchell starting, Josh Simpson returning to health, and Jamie Vardy also starting for the team, but in the eyes of others, Vardy may not be able to help Millwall's fringe bench.

Other locations are a bit pitiful.

Jewell was a little annoyed when he saw Millwall's starting line-up, and if he knew that Millwall would send such a line-up, he would definitely have to try for it.

When the game officially started, Jevier didn't regret it.

Millwall knocked on Wigan Athletic in the third minute when starting Jamie Vardy made a difference when he latched on to Smitchell's pass and fired a powerful shot from the edge of the box to give Millwall the lead.

In the twentieth minute, Josh Simpson took advantage of a free-kick opportunity to extend Millwall's lead.

With two goals in hand, the suspense of the game is not much.

Jewell no longer regrets not sending the main lineup, because the Millwall substitute formation on the field is no worse than the main lineup of Wigan Athletic.

This surprised Jewell.

It is not surprising that the real player ability, the lineups of the two teams are almost the same, Wigan Athletic is slightly stronger, but the football game is not the strength of the players, it is the overall performance of the whole team.

Millwall's tactics have allowed players to play better, and even if there are many substitutes in the squad, the overall performance has improved to a certain extent.

Millwall can suppress Wigan Athletic, and more importantly, the on-field performance.

That's what faith brings.

Why do you have to let the team find confidence? Got fighting spirit? Find out what it's like to be a strong team? The goal is to give every player a lot of confidence.

When Millwall had to face Wigan Athletic, every player subconsciously felt that Wigan Athletic was not Millwall's opponent, they had enough confidence to play a lot more comfortably on the field, and there would be no pressure, so the performance became better.

Of course, there are downsides to this.

If Wigan Athletic burst into form, the team could make careless mistakes.

But it doesn't matter.

Wigan Athletic's performance in this game was mediocre, and they only performed worse and not better under Millwall's pressure.

Millwall was the winner.

The team continued to play against Wigan Athletic with the belief that they must win, and David Livermore scored another goal in the second half to make it 3-0.

This is also the final score.

After beating Wigan Athletic, Millwall went on to play their third game after Christmas against Charlton Athletic.

It was a difficult game.

Charlton Athletic were not easy to deal with, as they had a dip from the early stages of the league and were able to hold down Millwall, who were semi-substitutes, thanks to home advantage.

Zhang Yang constantly emphasizes defense.

In the middle of the game, Zhang Yang also personally commanded the defense, which he rarely did, but in the face of Charlton's tough attack, he had to shout and seriously remind the players to pay more attention.

This has some effect.

Neither of the two halves 'predicted' Charlton's goal, but it was a bit of a shame that Millwall also failed to score.

In the end, the two sides fought 0-0.

However, Zhang Yang is very satisfied with the result, or rather, he is very satisfied with the results of three consecutive games after Christmas, the team only sent a semi-substitute lineup in each game, the main players have been well rested, and they can also play a record of two wins and one draw, which is equivalent to a stable passage through the difficult stage.

That's pretty good results.

All that's left is the final and most important game: Millwall go head-to-head with Chelsea.