Heading into January, it seems that City's form has been up and down because of the lead being too big.

In four matches in January, they have a record of two wins and two draws.

This is a result that they are very satisfied with when it comes to other teams.

But when it comes to defending champions Manchester City, it seems a little less than perfect.

Manchester City's 0-0 draw at home to Everton, in particular, came as a surprise to fans.

Manchester City were a bit slow to heat up in this game and missed a lot of chances.

And Everton's side played really well, especially their striker Romelu Lukaku, who performed well in the game, creating chances with his individual strength on several occasions, but unfortunately his teammates' ability to grasp opportunities was too poor, and he wasted the opportunities he created.

Romelu Lukaku's performance last year was already very good, and this year is a continuation of last year's excellent performance, attracting the attention of many teams and even giants.

Among them, Chelsea and Manchester United are most interested in Lukaku.

Romelu Lukaku is a veteran of Chelsea and Chelsea will naturally want to bring him back to Stamford Bridge after seeing him perform so well with the Toffees.

And Manchester United lacks a strong center forward, Everton, as the younger brother of Manchester United, has such a good center forward in the team, so the big brother naturally has to think about it.

With Manchester United's relationship with Everton, as long as the player himself does not object, this transfer should not be too much of a problem.

Guardiola did not take the outside world's discussion and even criticism to heart.

The knockout rounds of the Champions League are about to begin, and he must allocate as much fitness as possible to the players and reduce unnecessary consumption in order to face the brutal knockout rounds of the Champions League.

And the record of 2 wins and 2 draws has no impact on Manchester City's top position, and their main rivals Leicester City also have a record of 2 wins and 2 draws in these four games, and the difference between the two sides is still 12 points.

With 15 rounds left in the league, Manchester City is 12 points ahead of their opponents, and with such a huge advantage, Manchester City can naturally play more calmly.

Heading into February, Pep Guardiola has been even more bold in his team's rotation.

In the fourth round of the FA Cup, Pep Guardiola used an almost all-substitution line-up.

However, what is unexpected is that Manchester City's group of substitutes beat their opponents 5-0 away from home, and Aston Villa cannot be found.

The man of the match was the man of the match by City's own Academy graduate Heheanacho, who scored a hat-trick with an overhead kick to take his tally to 14 goals this season.

The season is not over yet, and with his current goal scoring rate, he may be able to reach 20 goals by the end of the season.

This is a very terrifying number, the leading scorer of many teams in the Premier League can't score so many goals in a season, let alone as a substitute!

After this match, Iheanacho's name was completely out of the circle.

Now it's not just the Premier League teams who know him, but teams from other leagues know his name.

In fact, during the winter break, there were already teams who made offers to Manchester City, hoping to bring him in.

However, these offers did not meet Guardiola's psychological expectations, and Iheanacho did not want to leave Manchester City for the time being, so all of them were rejected.

Now, with such a highlight performance, his value will definitely continue to rise.

In the summer, if other teams want to take him, if the offer is less than 30 million euros, Manchester City may not even look at it.

For Iheanacho, Guardiola's attitude is actually very clear.

If he is willing to stay, then Manchester City will open their doors to him and welcome him to stay in the team.

But Pep Guardiola will not promise him a place in the main team, he can only sit on the bench and compete for the main place himself.

However, with Aguero's current form, it will be very difficult for Iheanacho to compete with him, not to mention that with the arrival of Sane, Jesus and others, his playing time will be further squeezed.

As a result, Pep Guardiola is still inclined to sell him or go on loan.

After some communication with Pep Guardiola, Iheanacho also knew that although he was very reluctant to leave Manchester City, he still made the decision to leave for the sake of his career.

Out of respect for his old club, he turned down an olive branch from a Premier League team and preferred to play in other leagues.

La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and even Ligue 1 he does not exclude.

And when Manchester City released the news, many clubs were moved and sent people to investigate him.

Among them, there are even scouts from two Chinese Super League teams.

……

On 6 February, after a narrow 1-0 win away to Sunderland, Manchester City faced Leicester again.

This is the second meeting between the two teams after 40 days.

Since the last meeting, the two teams have almost identical records so far, with three wins and two draws in each of their last five league matches.

The difference is that Manchester City's opponents are generally weaker.

Leicester City's opponents are very strong, and there is no shortage of strong teams such as Tottenham and Liverpool.

And when facing these giants, Leicester City have emerged victorious.

This makes Leicester's morale greatly improved before the second battle with Manchester City begins, and they have completely come out of the shadow of the last defeat.

Ranieri is still very humble as before, he compliments Manchester City and Pep Guardiola, praising them as the best team and the best coach, believing that Manchester City's dominance in the Premier League is unbeatable, and Leicester City will aim to get a point at the Etihad Stadium.

Leicester lowered their posture very low, as if they had resigned themselves to their fate.

However, when the game started, they didn't look like they were going to throw in the towel at all.

Having learned the lessons of his last defeat, Ranieri opted for a solid counter-attacking tactic for this game.

Leicester's formation has shrunk very much, except for when the team will press out a little bit when they are on the counter-attack, at other times, their players will basically not leave the half-game, and they will not even leave the 30-meter area.

This extreme defense has caused huge problems for Manchester City's attack.

During the winter break, Leicester City also made a reinforcement with the introduction of a very fast striker.

Every time it was their turn to counter-attack, the striker was asked to play with City's defenders.

The success rate of this tactic is not high, but the threat is not small.

In the first half, Leicester City relied on defensive counter-attacking tactics and was on par with Manchester City.

After the second half, Manchester City began to change formations, and the formation became 3241.

Behind the strikers, there is a large group of passers who deliver cannonballs to the strikers.

What's even better is that these passers are also attackers, and they are also very capable of scoring, especially Lin Quan.

This formation makes the most of the width of the field, stretches the opposition defence, and creates great opportunities for attacking players, especially those who cut in from behind.

With this tactic, Manchester City scored first in the second half.

However, the opponent was lucky, as a long-range shot from outside the box deflected off the leg of a defender and unexpectedly equalised.

City then scored a goal on the counter-attack, but it was unfortunate that it was offside.

In the ensuing time, both teams failed to achieve anything, and the final battle ended in a 1:1 draw.

After this game, Manchester City's lead has not narrowed, and it is still 12 points.

Leicester City also managed to get a point away from home, so this result is acceptable for both sides!

After the game against Leicester City, Manchester City entered a very busy period of fixtures.

In the next half month, they have four games to play.

There are two Premier League games, one Champions League, one League Cup and one FA Cup.

Three of those games were all in the final week of February, leaving City with a bit of a lack of talent.

Last season, Pep Guardiola strategically abandoned the FA Cup and League Cup in order to preserve his league and Champions League results.

This season, Manchester City's increased bench thickness and Pep Guardiola's rotation have had an effect, and the team's fitness has not suffered much from the multi-front situation.

Therefore, after consulting the players, Manchester City will not give up on these cups this season and hope to win another Grand Slam!

Among them, the League Cup is almost over, and only the final is left.

It's just a bit of a hassle that it's Manchester City and Liverpool who have reached the final round of the Carabao Cup.

Liverpool has also had a title drought like Arsenal in recent years, and most of them will not let go of mosquito legs like the League Cup.

Therefore, Liverpool is likely to play their best in the final.

If you want to win them, you can't rely entirely on substitutes and young players.

Manchester City will have to send their main players to play as well, but this game is very close to the league.

If the main team is sent to fight Liverpool to the end, the 27th round of the league may have to be strategically abandoned.

"It's okay to give up the 27th round of the league, anyway, we have a big lead, and the 27th round of the league is very close to the Champions League quarter-finals, the players have just come back from the away game, and the fitness is definitely not fully recovered, if you play another league game, you will definitely not be in shape to compete with Liverpool for the title, so I am in favor of giving up the league!"

In internal discussions, most of the coaching staff were in favor of abandoning the league.

Even if they lose this game, they will only be chased back by their opponents by 3 points at most, and their lead is still very large, so they don't have to worry about losing the championship.

Moreover, the strength of the opponent is not strong, and Manchester City will not necessarily lose if it sends a substitute to play, if it wins or draws, it will be considered earned.

Considering that they will give up the 27th round, so in the 26th round of the home game against Tottenham, Manchester City will hope to beat the opponent and eat the three points steadily.

With Kane's strength continues to improve, under his leadership, Tottenham's record this season has improved a lot.

Although the abduction of Son Heung-min by Manchester City has had some adverse effects on them.

But Kane's rise has made up for those shortcomings, and he has become a popular fried chicken in the Premier League, touted by the Fleet Street media as the new British star.

disagrees with the British stars that were blown out before, Kane really has this strength.

So he has attracted the attention of a large number of top giants, and Real Madrid has even been rumored that Florentino intends to bring in Kane to replace Cristiano Ronaldo.

This statement is not groundless, after all, compared with the 'old' Ronaldo, Kane, who was born in 93, is younger and has greater potential for the future.

Real Madrid has bought players from Tottenham, and Bale bought them from Tottenham.

It's just that when buying Bale, Real Madrid was slaughtered by Tottenham.

If they really want to poach Kane from Tottenham, I'm afraid they will be slaughtered even worse, after all, in the eyes of Tottenham, Kane is much more important than Bale!

Although Kane's performances in the last two seasons have been excellent, few people were optimistic about Tottenham before the game.

The reason is also simple, Manchester City seem to have a blood restraint against Tottenham.

In the past few seasons, Manchester City's games against Tottenham have often been played by big scores, scoring four, five or even five or six goals, and not once or twice, but often.

Therefore, before the game, everyone felt that Tottenham was dead, and some people even bet that Tottenham would lose a few.

However, to everyone's surprise, Kane ushered in his own explosion in this game.

He and Eriksen combined to score three goals to help the team beat Manchester City 3-2 away, and finally stood up in front of Manchester City.

The defeat was a big surprise for the whole Manchester City team, even Tottenham Hotspur couldn't hold on to an opponent with a handle in hand, and they had already dropped three points before the 27th round arrived.

So, are they going to give up the next round?

"Coach, do you want to adjust our previous plan?"

"yes, if we lose in the next round, we will probably have to narrow our lead to six points!"

There are 12 rounds left in the league, and a 6-point lead is not small.

But conceding six points in two games is a bit wrong, even if one of the games is voluntarily waived by themselves.

Once Manchester City shows such a decline, let the suspense of this season's title reappear.

Then other teams will be more tenacious when they meet Manchester City, after all, apart from them, almost the entire Premier League does not want them to monopolize the Premier League title.

It also means that they will have a harder time playing in the next games.

So, they can't afford to lose the next game.

Hearing the words of the coaching staff, Guardiola also fell silent.

He knew what was at stake and knew that his decision was likely to have a very large impact.

"Let me think about it!"

Guardiola didn't rush to make a decision, because he couldn't make up his mind for a while, so he planned to go home and discuss it with Lin Quan, or watch it while walking, and wait until after the Champions League knockout round?

If you really can't, then give up the cup, even if you lose the League Cup, it doesn't matter!

After all, the Treble does not include the League Cup!

(End of chapter)