It's Christmas again, but for the Premier League players, it's not about them.

The Premier League has a very busy schedule between Christmas and New Year's Day, with four league games in eight days, from December 23 to January 1, an average of two days.

Such a dense schedule is definitely not a good thing for players who have played half a season and urgently need to rest and take a breather.

Too much of a busy schedule will not only cause physical fatigue to the players, but may also lead to injuries.

Many teams are full of injuries because of the intensive schedule during this period, and the physical confrontation in the Premier League is already fierce, and the referee's scale is also loose, making the frequency of player injuries much higher than in other leagues.

Manchester City suffered a big loss last season because of this, and their squad was almost incomplete.

In addition, some teams will use this time to go on a scoring frenzy in an attempt to close the gap between them and the top teams.

Therefore, for the teams at the top of the standings, it is even more difficult to be careless.

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

Arsenal basically performed well in the first half of every season, and after the fast train on Christmas, their form began to decline, and they were eliminated because of the Champions League at the end of the season, so they didn't have to fight on multiple fronts, and in order to keep their Champions League seats next season, their form picked up again, and finally they retained the fourth place.

Arsenal went through this process for almost a decade until they played badly last year and fell to fifth place.

The best way to deal with this situation is to rotate well in advance and reduce the consumption of key players as much as possible, so that they can have enough fitness and form to cope with this period of intensive fixtures.

Pep Guardiola has been preparing for this since the beginning of the season, with the rotation of the team's core players, including the strikers, midfielders and defence, never stopping.

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

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

This makes this season's Christmas, Manchester City have maintained their form very well, and there are almost no major injuries.

If some players feel unwell during training or games, Guardiola will replace them as soon as possible to avoid aggravating injuries.

Even if the team doctor checks on him afterwards, he usually doesn't arrange for these players to play right away, but instead gives them two or three days off to relax a little.

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

Although they are about to travel to Newcastle United, the players prefer to be with their families on such an important holiday as Christmas.

The team is having a good momentum right now, and Pep Guardiola naturally won't be too busy with this kind of thing.

But in this case, the preparation before the game will definitely be affected.

Therefore, in the game 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 the more traditional 433 formation.

City rotated all three lines in this game, with Gabriel Jesus replacing Sergio Aguero up front, Kylian Mbappe continuing to start, and Leroy Sane replacing David Silva.

In midfield, Bench B, Gundogan and Fernandinho replaced Lin Quan, Kevin De Bruyne and N'Golo Kante.

As for the backline, Walker is still in the starting line-up, with veteran captain Vincent Kompany alongside Antonio Rudiger and the other full-back being Danilo, who was brought in from Real Madrid last year.

After Danilo joined Manchester City, he did not play many times for Manchester City, and this time he finally got the opportunity to start, which made him cherish it, and he performed exceptionally the field, very active in attack and defense, and he can be seen everywhere on the left side.

This left Guardiola very happy with his performance, and even a little surprised.

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

He once thought that he had bought a parallel import, but now that he looks at it, this guy's strength is still there, and it is not a parallel import.

However, 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 increasingly feels that the deal is very cost-effective.

After Walker's arrival, City's defensive intensity on the right flank immediately rose to a new level.

Kyle Walker's defensive prowess is outstanding, not only with his quick turns, but also his ability to play physically, but he is also very good when dealing with in-cutting wingers.

Not only that, Walker's skills at his feet are excellent, and his attacking awareness is also very good, not only can he pass a good ball, but he can also keenly catch the attacking moment and cut in at the right time to complete the fatal blow.

This guy is an all-rounder!

Facing a strong and recently popular Manchester City, Newcastle's squad can be described as cautious or even 'cowardly'.

Fighting at home, they actually discharged a 541 formation, which is simply outrageous.

In the face of the opponent's iron bucket formation, Manchester City's substitutes and rotations fought very hard.

In the first half, they tried attacking from various positions, but struggled to create chances to score.

At the end of 45 minutes, the two teams exchanged scores, and neither team scored.

Judging from the field, Manchester City firmly occupied the initiative in the game.

The disparity in possession between the two sides in the first half was huge, with City having over 80 per cent possession and barely leaving their feet.

Such high possession resulted in plenty of shots, with City blasting 14 shots on goal in the first half, but only a measly two on target.

Newcastle's goalkeeper was busy with his feet but actually made just two crucial saves.

Newcastle are quite satisfied with the score, after all, putting up such an iron bucket formation is to go for a draw.

If they had met Manchester City last season, they would have been able to fight each other for real time.

But against Manchester City, who have won 17 in a row so far, Newcastle have no way to go toe-to-toe with each other.

The teams that have thought this way before have become the ghosts of Manchester City, and they are not stupid enough to follow the same path as others.

As long as they can draw Manchester City and end the opponent's winning streak, then Newcastle's goal has been achieved, as for whether the scene is good or not, whether it can score or not, it doesn't matter.

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

In the stands at St James' Park, thousands of Manchester City fans who travelled with the team booed at the sight of Newcastle getting the ball, unhappy with their turtle-like approach.

For fans, what they hate the most is this kind of dull draw where they can't see a single goal in the whole game, and the people who watch it are drowsy and can't lift their spirits.

Soon after the start of the second half, seeing that the opponent's intention to continue to swing the bus was very resolute, Guardiola could only let the main players warm up and prepare to play.

Although he doesn't care about the winning streak anymore, Manchester City still can't accept a draw in this game.

Once Newcastle drew them, they tasted the sweetness.

The remaining teams in the middle and lower reaches, when they meet them in the league, I am afraid they will follow the same example and use the iron bucket formation to deal with them.

To be honest, the bucket array or something, it's still very annoying.

Breaking down dense defense is a global problem, and although Manchester City is strong, it is difficult to break the opponent's turtle shell without putting in a lot of effort.

If the consumption of each game is huge, then they may not be able to sustain the consumption of multi-front battles.

It is not impossible that the team will collapse because of this.

So, this game has to be won.

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

Kevin De Bruyne comes on for Vincent Kompany.

Lin Quan came on and replaced Gundogan.

From the time Lin Quan, De Bruyne and others appeared on the sidelines to warm up, in the stands, the eyes of fans on both sides swept over frequently.

It seems that the few people who are warming up on the sidelines are more interesting than the game they are playing.

At this time, seeing that Lin Quan and De Bruyne, the twin stars of Manchester City, are about to debut, the mentality of fans on both sides is completely different.

Manchester City's fans were all excited as if they had been boosted, and some fans who had been a little apprehensive when they saw the team unable to attack for a long time were relieved at this time.

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 together, they can't help but feel a little apprehensive.

The shadow of the famous tree, the combination of Lin Quan and De Bruyne, is one of the best super offensive combinations in the entire football world, and the two of them can make the opponent tremble three times if they are any person.

At the same time, the fans on the other side can only pray to God.

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

City's attacking tempo became more fluid and more deadly.

De Bruyne's penetrating passes, Lin Quan's passing and tandem in front of the pitch and his occasional breakthroughs all skyrocketed City's attacking threat.

Newcastle's defence is starting to get a little clumsy.

In the 62nd minute, Manchester City played a wonderful match in front, Lin Quan received the pass from seat B, dribbled into the penalty area, took a few steps diagonally, took away the opponent's two defenders, knocked to the middle, and the follow-up Jesus easily hit the ball into the goal.

Manchester City finally smashed the opponent's turtle shell and took the lead.

After the goal, Jesus excitedly rushed to the underside of the stands where the visiting fans gathered, raised his arms, and signaled the cheers and applause of the fans to be a little louder.

The Manchester City fans were very cooperative, giving more applause and cheers, while the home fans sighed one by one.

While lamenting the strength of Manchester City, he was also haunted by the goal he had just conceded.

They have been holding on for more than 60 minutes, and if they hold on for another half hour, they will be able to end Manchester City's winning streak, but unfortunately, in the end, it still falls short.

Alas, I think Manchester City was just like them, an ordinary team in the middle and lower reaches, and even Newcastle's history is stronger than Manchester City.

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

But Newcastle is still alive and well, there is no improvement, I really don't know when Newcastle will rise as quickly as Manchester City......

In the face of a dense defence, as long as you can score the first goal, the rest is much easier.

Newcastle will have to attack if they don't want to accept defeat, and once they do, their bucket formation will be broken, and Manchester City will have a way to concoct them well.

However, what Manchester City did not expect was that Newcastle had no intention of asking for a win.

After falling behind the score, not only did they not launch a counterattack, but further shrunk their formation, still setting up a bucket formation.

This makes Manchester City can't be rectified, you are one goal behind, if you don't attack, aren't you afraid that we will run out of time in the middle and back?

Newcastle are really not afraid, and there is no psychological pressure on them to lose.

Manchester City this season is too strong, so many giants and strong teams in the Premier League have all fallen at the feet of Manchester City, how old are they?

Isn't it normal to lose?

It's as good as Liverpool, and it lost to Manchester City by 6 goals!

They never thought they could beat Manchester City, and a draw was their biggest luxury.

Now that this greatest hope has been shattered, Newcastle will take a step back and only seek a small loss, and there will be no tragedy, and this will be it.

The opponent showed no fighting spirit and aggressiveness, and Manchester City fell for a while, and after finding that the opponent really didn't care about their time, they also figured it out.

Encountering such a Buddhist opponent, Manchester City has no choice.

As a result, they did not besiege each other with the same intensity as before.

Anyway, the victory is decided, what are you wasting that physical strength for?

It is expected to be a death to Newcastle who have already resigned themselves to their fate, so it is better to save their strength to play the next game!

For this unenterprising behavior of the two teams, fans on both sides strongly condemned.

You're all starting to play tacit ball, so what are we going to see?

The boos suddenly became louder, and this time, not only the Manchester City fans were booing, but also the fans of the home team.

Seemingly sensing the anger of the fans, Newcastle reluctantly launched several attacks.

Manchester City saw that they were moving and unceremoniously hit them on several counter-attacks.

Sane hit the post twice in three minutes, causing Newcastle to break out in a cold sweat, and soon retracted and stopped attacking.

Facing the opponent who completely retracted, Sane crossed his hands on his hips and sighed.

It was so bad luck today, such a good chance, hitting the post twice in a row, but if it wasn't the post again, he would have scored. (End of chapter)