Chapter 27: The First Team

Standing at the edge of the first-team training pitch, Saint had to physically stop himself from letting out something ridiculous; some line from a film, the kind of moment that deserved a soundtrack.

He caught himself in time, mostly because he’d spotted familiar faces: Colin Pratt, plus the three remaining first-team coaches; Alan Ingram, Gary Pinnock, and Nick Fairclough.

The first-team staff had numbered six under Ventham. Three of those had come in with him specifically and left the building the same day he did.

Pratt and the others clocked Saint the moment he walked over. Unlike the rest, though, there was something complicated sitting behind Pratt’s eyes.

Every soldier secretly wants to be a general, the old saying goes. Every player wants to be the star. And every assistant coach, whatever they say publicly, quietly wonders whether the top job might one day be theirs.

Under normal circumstances, an assistant is the natural next choice when a manager leaves. Plenty of people around the club; fans, press, and by the look of things Pratt himself, had assumed exactly that would happen here.

Saint didn’t know precisely what was running through Pratt’s head in that moment. What he did know, with total certainty, was that it couldn’t be simple.

This was, in fact, exactly the problem Saint needed to solve first. Nobody at this club knew the first-team squad better than Pratt did; but knowing the squad and commanding it as head coach were two very different things.

There wasn’t time to build an entirely new staff from scratch. Saint needed these men on his side, and fast; which meant proving, quickly, that he deserved to be standing where he was standing.

"Right, lads... good to be working together again." No point pretending otherwise; Saint and this coaching group had always gotten on well, back when he’d first come up through the first team as Sallow’s assistant.

He’d technically carried the title of assistant coach back then, though in practice he’d mostly been the man running errands and picking up whatever nobody else wanted. Even so, those months had taught him more than he’d expected.

Nobody in that group had seriously imagined he’d be back this soon, let alone back as the man in charge.

"Welcome back, Saint." Pratt settled his expression before he said it.

Old colleagues, all of them, and once the pleasantries were out of the way, Saint got straight to business; squad news, first and foremost.

"No fresh injuries at the moment," Saint said. He’d kept half an eye on the first team throughout his time with the U21s, but nothing beat hearing it directly from the men who’d been in the building every day.

"Real issue right now is the knock-on effect from the losing run. Morale’s rock bottom, and there’s already talk that a few of the lads are quietly looking for their next move." That, more than anything, was the fire Saint actually needed to put out first.

"Who’s saying that?" Saint asked directly.

"Well..." Pratt hesitated.

"Nick, you don’t have to spell it out... I’ll find out within the week regardless." Saint knew exactly what was holding him back.

"Word is Whitfield’s already had contact from a couple of clubs." Whitfield, Villa’s record signing that summer, the man Ventham had built the entire captaincy around.

Pratt ran through a few more names after that, mixing established squad members with a couple of the summer’s new arrivals, before adding the obvious caveat: none of it confirmed, all of it rumour for now.

"Right... let me introduce someone." A familiar figure appeared just behind the group as Pratt finished talking.

Paul Cadman. Once Saint had left the U21s for the first-team job, tracking Cadman down and asking whether he wanted to come along had been one of the first calls he made.

"Paul Cadman... we’ll be working together going forward." Cadman’s presence on the first-team training pitch answered the question before anyone had to ask it out loud.

Sallow had already sorted the U21s’ interim arrangements well ahead of time. Everything the academy did existed to feed the first team eventually anyway, so nobody blinked at the reshuffle.

New managers bringing their own people is standard practice in this sport, and Pratt and the others took Cadman’s arrival entirely in stride.

While Saint caught up with the staff, players began filtering into the training ground in ones and twos. Championship football doesn’t draw the same media circus as the Premier League, but professionals are professionals; most of the squad walked past the assembled press with practiced indifference, giving nothing away.

Not every player managed that, though. Saint didn’t know it yet, but a handful had already given quotes outside the gates that morning; some openly unimpressed with the club’s decision, and a couple not bothering to hide their contempt for Saint personally.

He’d made an impression on this squad before, and not always a welcome one. Even as an assistant, Saint had never been shy about speaking up, Whitfield could attest to that personally.

That same directness had earned him real resentment from certain corners of the dressing room. Nobody enjoys being pulled up by someone as young as half the room, and every conspiracy theory about how Saint had landed his first-team role in the first place had made the rounds more than once.

Thirty-one and only a few years into coaching was still, on paper, an enormous ask for anyone to accept without question; plenty of people in that building genuinely doubted whether he had the standing to run a professional squad at all.

"Normal session today," Saint said, watching the players filter in, and left it at that.

The coaching staff got moving straight after, pulling out equipment, setting up for the morning’s work. Cadman fell into the rhythm instantly, right alongside the rest.

Saint held back for a moment before joining them. He wasn’t the assistant he’d been four months ago. He was the man running this club now, whether the room had fully accepted it yet or not.

In the dressing room, players kept trickling in. A few of the summer’s new signings; men who owed their place at the club to Ventham specifically, made their unhappiness with the appointment fairly obvious from the start.

"Tell me the club’s lost its mind," said Roberto Guzman, a South American wing-back who’d played almost exclusively under Ventham’s system.

"Who knows... maybe they’ve already written this season off. Handing it to him might just be cover for relegation," said Alex Colston, on loan from a Premier League side and, by his own admission, not remotely invested in Villa’s long-term future.

"Wouldn’t shock me. If we do go down, the board gets to point at him instead of themselves," Guzman agreed.

Not everyone in the room shared that read. Conlan and Delgado, both with significant roots at the club, had their own frustrations; mostly aimed at the board’s handling of the whole situation rather than at Saint personally, though neither was exactly optimistic either.

Two players in the corner of the room stayed conspicuously out of the conversation entirely; quiet, saying nothing, because unlike almost everyone else in that dressing room, they already knew exactly what Saint was capable of.