Chapter 37: A Battle of Wits

"We actually won. He actually pulled that off." In pubs across the Midlands, Villa supporters were still processing what they’d just watched.

"You reckon Danny’s been right about him this whole time?" More than one conversation drifted back to exactly that question; genius seemed like the only word left that fit.

"What I actually want to know is what he said to that dressing room at half-time." That question hung over the media and the fans in equal measure.

Neither group was going to get an answer, though. Nobody who’d been in that room was talking, and the club had no reason to volunteer what had actually happened.

Compared to the wider fanbase’s shock and delight, Danny, Marcus, and Owen felt something closer to plain relief watching that final whistle go.

Danny, in particular, had genuinely doubted himself at half-time, wondered whether backing Saint publicly had been a mistake after all. By full time, that doubt had burned off completely, replaced by something bordering on reckless confidence.

He’d even floated an idea to the other two on the walk back from the pub; something about starting a proper supporters’ campaign in Saint’s favour. Marcus and Owen had both talked him down fairly quickly. English football didn’t really work like that, and a trio of season-ticket holders weren’t about to swing club policy either way.

Back at Villa Park, Saint had barely made it into the dressing room before his phone rang; Whitlock, calling to offer his congratulations personally. Notably, the chairman hadn’t come to the match at all, which said plenty about how confident he’d actually been in his own decision.

Sallow had traveled with the squad. He’d looked genuinely sick with nerves through the first half, standing rigid on the touchline like any ordinary supporter; but the moment the second half turned, he’d thrown himself into the celebrations with everyone else.

That good mood didn’t survive long, though, once Saint’s press conference stunt reached him.

"Lee... you’ve just made an enemy of the entire national press corps." Sallow caught up with him in the corridor, clearly still processing it. Villa’s results under Saint would end up directly shaping how much authority Sallow himself held going forward; Pedmore, quietly, was watching every headline just as closely.

"Derek... if I’d bowed and scraped, would they have written anything kinder about me?" Saint looked at him evenly as he asked it.

"Uh..." Sallow had no answer for that, because he knew exactly how this worked. Whatever tone Saint took with them, the press had already decided what story they wanted to tell.

Saint was too young for most of the football establishment’s taste, full stop. That alone was always going to be the story, regardless of how he handled himself in front of a microphone.

The moment Saint had accepted this job, he’d signed up for resistance from every direction; scrutiny, skepticism, and no shortage of outright hostility, none of which was likely to ease off just because of one good result.

Sallow, if he was honest with himself, had second-guessed his own role in all of this more than once already. Whatever confidence he had in Saint’s ability, there remained a nagging worry that he’d exposed someone this young to pressure that could genuinely break a less resilient person.

And yet, everything Saint had actually produced so far kept outrunning Sallow’s own expectations, and today had been no exception.

"Well done. You’ve earned yourselves another week in this dressing room." Saint said his goodbyes to Sallow and headed back to address the players one final time before they dispersed.

Watching that same rueful, slightly amused expression cross Saint’s face, none of Villa’s players said anything out loud. That didn’t mean the resentment wasn’t sitting there underneath, quietly, for at least a few of them.

"I know some of you are cursing me under your breath right now." Saint’s opening line landed harder than expected, judging by a few visibly startled faces.

"That’s fine. Curse away, so long as I don’t have to hear it. Just don’t let it slip into your legs on the training pitch; the reserves squad isn’t going anywhere, and neither is my patience." With that, he left the dressing room, and the players filtered out not long after.

A well-earned break started the next day, but nobody was lingering in Millwall’s corner of London a moment longer than necessary.

The win had thrown off Saint’s original plan somewhat, but not without upside; the entire drive home, he’d been quietly working through exactly how he wanted to handle the fallout.

He was asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow, and woke early the next morning in genuinely good spirits, heading straight out to pick up every paper he could find.

The disappointment came fast. Coverage of yesterday’s match was thin across the board; a paragraph here, a mention there, and barely any of it centered on Saint himself.

Barrow, ironically, got more column inches out of the defeat than Saint got out of the win; not the kind of attention Barrow would have chosen, but attention all the same.

What little coverage Saint did get wasn’t kind. Almost every mention treated him as the punchline rather than the story; the youngest permanent manager in the modern game, reduced to a novelty footnote in his own comeback win.

Not every outlet piled on, to be fair. Ashwell’s piece for the Midlands Sports Gazette was a clear exception, and the Villa Express, to its credit, ran a genuinely balanced account of the match.

Whatever the first half had looked like, the second-half transformation was plain for anyone actually watching, and the players’ own performances made it obvious exactly whose fingerprints were behind that shift. Most of the national press had simply decided not to look that closely.

Saint wasn’t immune to a bit of vanity, whatever he liked to tell himself, and the coverage stung more than he expected. There wasn’t much use dwelling on it, though, beyond a private moment of irritation.

Reading through the coverage did clarify something useful, at least. Whatever Villa achieved this season, London and Manchester’s press would always have bigger, more glamorous stories on their own doorstep to chase first.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham in the capital. City and United up north. Any of those outlets could ignore a mid-table Championship club entirely and never miss a thing worth reporting.

Not reporting on Villa didn’t mean forgetting about Saint specifically, though. Plenty of these same reporters clearly had a score to settle after yesterday’s press conference stunt, and Saint had no illusions they’d let that go quietly.

He set the papers aside and got started on breakfast. Rest day or not, there was still plenty on his plate; starting with a trip down to the reserves and academy sides to formally pull Delgado and a promising young reserve forward back up into first-team contention.

Okoro hadn’t been performing to standard lately, and honestly hadn’t been for a while. His starting spot under Ventham had owed more to personal favour than genuine current form.

A falling-out between Ventham and Delgado had pushed the latter down to the reserves earlier in the season, and Okoro had simply inherited the space left behind; despite being, by any honest measure, the weaker player of the two right now.

There was also Whitfield to deal with. Saint had already decided he wanted a real conversation with him, one on one, and had told him as much the night before; Whitfield was due at Saint’s office first thing today.