Chapter 42: Total Suppression

"3–0. That is an absolutely extraordinary scoreline. Villa’s opponent today is Derby County... unbeaten in six, genuinely one of the best sides in this division right now."

Extraordinary hardly covered it. Even Villa’s most committed supporters couldn’t have imagined their club taking a three-goal lead into half-time against a side like this.

Before kickoff, almost every neutral had Derby down as the safer bet, even plenty of Villa’s own faithful had quietly braced for a defeat, hoping merely to avoid embarrassment.

And now? Thirty-nine minutes on the clock, first half not even finished, and Villa led 3–0.

"Ha... looks like Villa’s young manager has properly won this dressing room over." Delgado, having just scored, was already sprinting to the touchline to embrace Saint.

Delgado had joined the club a year earlier on loan, only making the move permanent this past summer. He and Saint had already had one honest conversation this week, and Delgado had come away from it genuinely convinced. Watching the first two goalscorers celebrate with Saint had clearly settled any remaining doubt.

Saint joined the celebration briefly, but didn’t let it linger; the moment it settled, he was already calling Conlan and Whitfield over. "Stay switched on. Derby will come back at us hard... don’t relax."

That warning turned out to be exactly right. The moment play resumed, Derby reasserted control, throwing everything at Villa before the whistle for half-time, with nothing left to conserve for later.

"Villa are holding firm... it really does look like Saint Maddox anticipated exactly this," Curtis said, watching Villa absorb the pressure without conceding a single clear chance.

When referee Steve Pieri finally blew for half-time, the score held: 3–0.

"From the first half alone, Whitby’s been comprehensively out-thought by a manager barely two matches into the job," Curtis said, a note of genuine admiration creeping into his voice.

He wasn’t alone in that read. The Villa Park crowd felt exactly the same way.

Derby had come into this match chasing automatic promotion. Instead, they were three goals down at the break against a side that had been fighting relegation a fortnight earlier.

With the whistle, support for Saint among the fanbase shifted dramatically once again. Last week’s win had bought him goodwill and patience. This half had bought him something closer to genuine belief.

Fan loyalty, especially at a club like Villa, comes down to something simple in the end: win, and the crowd will follow you almost anywhere.

Along the press line, reaction split familiarly. Most of the national press kept their expressions guarded, still processing what they’d just watched. The smaller pocket of regional reporters; Reid among them, notebook already half full, could barely contain their satisfaction.

Reid had covered this exact story since it was worth nothing to anyone outside the Midlands. Watching it validated on this stage, in real time, felt like something close to vindication.

Back in the dressing room, Saint didn’t waste the interval on lectures. "Excellent first half, genuinely... that’s about as complete a forty-five minutes as I could’ve asked for."

"But that’s exactly what it is... a first half. Ninety minutes in this game, and Derby aren’t going to accept this scoreline without a real fight in the second. If we want to actually finish this off, we need the same standard again."

Derby’s season, and their manager’s own reputation, simply wouldn’t allow them to accept a result like this quietly. Whitby had built a genuine career in this division... there was no version of him walking away from this match without at least trying to salvage something.

While Saint was reminding his players to stay alert for exactly that response, Derby’s own dressing room was doing precisely what Saint expected... Whitby rallying his players hard for one final push.

"If none of you want to be the story every pundit in the country’s laughing at by Monday morning, you find something extra in that second half." Derby’s players, chastened by the scoreline, needed no further motivation after that.

Fifteen minutes feels endless to a watching crowd and painfully short to players desperate to recover. Both benches emptied back onto the pitch soon enough regardless.

Tension crackled the moment both sets of players reconvened... Derby unwilling to accept this result, Villa determined to see it through.

It wasn’t only the players, either. When the two managers crossed paths again pitch-side, something had visibly shifted in both men’s expressions. Whitby no longer looked remotely complacent. Saint, if anything, looked more certain than he had at kickoff.

"Same shape, same personnel... Villa aren’t changing a thing at the restart," Curtis observed, settling back into commentary mode.

"And Villa aren’t rushing forward either... content just knocking it around their own half for now." With possession secured, Villa showed no urgency to attack at all.

"Bloody hell." Whitby, watching this unfold from the technical area, hadn’t immediately clocked what Saint was actually doing with it.

’Is this kid genuinely only thirty-one?’ Some grudging respect crept into Whitby’s read of the situation despite himself.

"Ha... Saint really is something else, isn’t he," Curtis said, having clearly worked out Saint’s plan several beats ahead of his opposite number.

Facing Villa in total control of the ball, Derby had no real option but to press and chase, trying to force a mistake. But every minute spent chasing shadows was a minute drained from legs that had already given everything in that furious first-half push.

Put simply: if Derby couldn’t find a goal before their legs gave out entirely, they were staring down a genuinely humiliating result.

Whitby understood exactly what trap he was walking into. He also understood he had no real alternative; sitting back and conceding the game entirely wasn’t something his own players, or his own pride, would tolerate.

So the order went out, and Derby threw themselves into pressing hard... only for Whitby to realise, within a few minutes, that it wasn’t working at all.

Across the pitch, Saint stood with a confidence that looked entirely out of place on a face this young; and it wasn’t misplaced bravado. He wouldn’t have committed to this approach without genuine belief it would hold.

Rocher, Whitfield, Delgado, even Peña when given the license; every one of them comfortable enough in possession to make this patient, controlling approach actually function. That technical baseline was exactly what let Saint play keep-ball with total confidence.

Add in a compact defensive shape sitting deep behind that possession, and unless Derby had a genuine game-changer capable of conjuring something from nothing, breaking Villa down in this state was going to be nearly impossible.