Chapter 142: Villa Do Not Need Saint

"GOAL! Two nil! Villa have scored a second in this match!"

"Tomlin! Tomlin! The Villa striker has used his outstanding form to show everyone why the club paid so much for him!" Four goals this season, and Tomlin’s numbers were now perfect.

"It’s over! It’s over! Southampton’s counter-attack has finally been answered by a Villa counter!"

At that point the match had moved into the second half, and Southampton had come out fighting, trying to turn the game around.

It would be unfair not to say that Gresham’s willingness to gamble very nearly paid off. If Vacek had not been playing like a man from another world, the score might have been 1-1 rather than 2-0.

In the third minute of the second half, Southampton created a very good chance. Brandt played the ball to Kell. The German forward leaned on Barzley in the penalty area, and Kell overpowered Teale to head at goal, only for Vacek to fly across and push it away.

But Southampton’s best chance came five minutes later. A wonderful dribble from Holm tore Villa’s back line open, and then he found an unmarked Kell with a pass.

Kell, though, seemed destined to miss in this match. No, it would be fairer to say that Vacek appeared to be hanging from the bar just to spite him, and Kell’s shot was somehow, incredibly, kept out.

That save crushed Kell’s confidence completely. For the rest of his time on the pitch he never recovered, and in the end Gresham could only take him off.

Before that happened, though, Villa had settled the match. Just three minutes after Kell’s miss, they scored again on the counter.

This time it was Jurek’s cross that did the work. Vrba stepped in to challenge, only to be robbed by Reyes and Jurek together. Jurek hung up a ball almost identical to the one Holm had sent in earlier.

Unlike Kell, Tomlin’s finish was tricky, and Hartigan was not Vacek. The ball slipped off his fingertips and flew into the net.

After that Gresham made changes, but they could not alter the players on the pitch. And once they were two goals ahead, Saint started to adjust as well. He took off the two scorers, Tomlin and Pryce, and sent on Salerno and Rami, who was making his Premier League debut.

Rami was the tallest defender in the Villa squad. When Saint had seen Barzley struggling to hold off Brandt’s weight, he decided to bring Rami on to help.

At the same time Salerno came on, a change meant to carry out the counter-attacking plan more completely, and it brought a third goal almost at once.

It was another counter. Salerno, fresh off the bench, burst clear on his own, and with astonishing pace he left the defender behind, ran into the Southampton area, and finally beat Hartigan again.

"Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable, Villa have beaten Southampton three nil without their manager!" When the final whistle blew, nobody could believe a three nil scoreline against that side.

In the stands, Saint did not leap up this time. He sat quite still, clapped four times, and put his notebook away, to the visible relief of the two officials, who had spent the last ten minutes bracing for a pitch invasion. Danny, in front, turned round and gave him a thumbs-up with both hands, still holding a phone in each.

Down on the touchline, Cadman was mobbed by the substitutes, and Pratt had to rescue his clipboard from Salerno, who was trying to use it as a trophy.

"Don’t let it go to your head," Pratt said, grinning.

"It’s not my head I’m worried about," Cadman said, and looked up towards the Holte End. "He’s going to be unbearable on Monday."

It did not take long, though, for certain newspapers to get excited, because they had found a new excuse to attack Saint.

"VILLA DO NOT NEED SAINT," said the Daily Courier.

The most incredible thing was not that Villa had beaten Southampton. It was that Villa’s manager had been sent to the stands because of his ban, and the team had won anyway.

So could it be read this way, the paper asked? Villa did not really need Saint, because they had a strong coaching staff, and assistant manager Paul Cadman had shown his abilities in this game. Perhaps Villa should consider giving the young coach a chance, because this match showed his quality.

It was not only the Courier. The Northern Sports Post and the Metropolitan Mail joined in.

The Metropolitan Mail was the loudest. After the match at Stamford Bridge, Saint and Chelsea could not be reconciled, and as the voice of the home crowd it naturally had no kind words for him.

Soon, however, these papers were slapped in the face, because somebody leaked that Villa’s win over Southampton had in fact been run by Saint himself.

"Damn it, that man has talked," Whitlock said with a mournful face, sitting in Saint’s living room.

It was said that the two friends were currently single at the same time. After the Chelsea match, Whitlock and his partner Marianne had officially split, and Saint’s parting from Imogen had come at almost the same moment.

But nobody had time to pay attention to such small matters, did they?

Small matters? Perhaps to Whitlock, who had often whispered that Marianne was his true love, though in truth, by his own admission, it was a bit more habit than love. Whatever it was, it was over.

"This method can’t be used again in the next game," Saint said, unmoved by any of it.

"Can’t be used? Well, the people at the Football Association aren’t stupid, are they?" Whitlock understood at once.

The Football Association had indeed begun to look for a fix, and the fix was simple: keep Saint away from the Villa supporters entirely.

Still, the next league game was a fair distance off for Saint and Villa, because the Chelsea replay had to be played in the middle of that stretch.

Saint was not worried about the replay. After everything that had happened, he felt Villa had a fine chance of beating Chelsea.

Strickland’s importance to Chelsea needed no explanation, and Rennick’s ban mattered just as much. It was fair to say that between them, the two bans had scrapped sixty per cent of Chelsea’s attack.

The league had already proved it. In round five Chelsea had travelled to promoted Middlesbrough, and when the ninety minutes were up the scoreboard still read 0-0.

Hard to believe? To Chelsea supporters it was simply unthinkable. A club famous for its attacking play had drawn a blank against a promoted side.

Middlesbrough were not Villa, of course, and the London crowd had never really accepted how strong Villa were. If it had not been for the brawl, they would have been sure the final victory belonged to them.

But there are no ifs in the world. Strickland was banned for fifteen games and Rennick for three, and Chelsea’s attack was close to paralysed.

After the Middlesbrough match the bookmakers immediately lengthened Chelsea’s odds for the title, and the newspapers all agreed that the London side would fall even further behind in their next game, the replay against Villa.

Across the sofa, Whitlock poured himself a second cup of tea and raised it in a small toast.

"To the replay," he said.

"To the replay," Saint said, and for the first time all week he smiled properly.