Chapter 53: Wait for Me

"Two on one... Reading’s double up on Rocher!" A few weeks into this run, and opponents had clearly done their homework. Villa’s chief threat wasn’t a secret anymore.

Rocher, unsurprisingly, drew the most attention of anyone on Villa’s team sheet. Even coming off a quiet performance against Preston, nobody watching this division seriously doubted he was the sharpest weapon in Villa’s attacking arsenal.

Before this match, Ross had specifically drilled his defenders: cut off Rocher before he even gets the chance to cut inside, don’t wait for him to enter the box.

"Pass... clever from Rocher, refuses to let himself get bottled up out wide," Curtis called, watching Rocher lay it off to Okoro rather than force the issue himself.

Okoro had drifted alongside him the entire run, ready exactly for this. But by the time the ball reached him, Reading’s midfielder had already tracked back to close the angle, denying any real shooting chance.

Okoro cushioned it back to Conlan, arriving late from deep, who unloaded a genuinely powerful strike from range.

"Shot... off the bar!" Conlan’s effort carried real venom, and the deflection off Okoro’s touch had thrown just enough disguise into it to beat the goalkeeper’s positioning entirely.

"Just not falling for Villa today," Curtis said, and Conlan himself clearly felt the same way, visibly frustrated the effort hadn’t gone in.

Reading’s goalkeeper, coincidentally also named Ross, a common enough surname in English football that it barely registered as coincidence at all, took the resulting goal kick.

The ball found Boyd, who nodded it down to Donnelly. Donnelly split the play wide, finding Tonet, who charged forward down the flank much the way Rocher had earlier in the match.

Tonet’s style of running, though, bore no real resemblance to Rocher’s. Where Rocher glided, Tonet muscled, effective, but nothing like the same aesthetic quality.

Not that football particularly rewards style points. Tonet, for all his lack of grace, still did the job the cross found its way into Villa’s box regardless.

"Rami! Young centre-back rises above Vukic, clears the danger clean." Rami’s aerial defending was faultless in that moment, comfortably winning the header and forcing Reading back.

"Villa break... Rami’s clearance finds Whitfield instantly." Villa surged forward on the counter without hesitation.

Whitfield read the moment perfectly. A long, precise pass, arrowing straight across the halfway line into Reading’s own half.

"Okoro! Pace... genuine pace, leaving Reading’s back line for dead!" Villa’s forward tore clear like lightning, shrugging off his marker entirely.

"Perfect ball, absolutely perfect delivery from Whitfield." The pass dropped exactly into Okoro’s stride.

"One-on-one! This is Villa’s chance... this is Okoro’s chance!" With nothing but the goalkeeper ahead of him, Okoro drove straight at goal.

"Into the box..."

"Shot!"

"NO... Ross! Reading’s keeper with the block, gets a leg out to deny him!"

"Not over yet... the ball’s still live in the box!" Behind Okoro, another figure had continued the run, arriving at exactly the right moment.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! Villa strike first! Two minutes on the clock, and Villa are already ahead!"

"Rocher! Finishes the rebound himself!" Rocher had trailed the initial run slightly, a beat slower than Okoro off the mark and positioned marginally deeper, but that small gap was exactly what let him arrive late enough to bury the loose ball.

"There’s something familiar about this; three weeks back, against another promotion hopeful, this exact player broke the deadlock inside the opening exchanges too."

True enough... the moment Rocher’s shot hit the net, every Villa supporter watching immediately thought back to the Wednesday demolition, still the standout result of this whole run.

"There he goes... Villa’s manager, sprinting the full length of the technical area!" The instant Rocher’s shot crossed the line, Saint was up and moving, arms pumping as he tore down the touchline toward the celebration.

"Ha... someone’s about to have a very bad time," Curtis said, already anticipating what was coming.

Because the moment Saint reached Rocher for the hug, the rest of the Villa squad arrived right behind him... and rather than join the embrace politely, they simply piled straight on top of both of them.

"Oi! get OFF me, you absolute animals!" Saint’s protest disappeared completely into the noise, the players lost in the moment, the crowd fully losing itself right along with them.

"Ha! Saint’s regretting that sprint now, I’d wager," Curtis said, once the pile finally untangled and Saint reappeared, considerably worse for wear.

His suit, sharp at kickoff, now looked like it had been through a wrestling match, which, functionally, it had. His hair was flecked with grass, and his whole composed, media-ready presentation had been thoroughly undone.

"Right... that was absolutely deliberate, wasn’t it?" Villa’s players, catching sight of Saint’s expression, wisely turned and sprinted straight back toward the pitch rather than stick around for an answer.

Nobody acknowledged the question at all, if anything, their retreat picked up speed the longer Saint kept shouting after them.

"Oi! get back here, all of you!" The referee had already made his way over by that point, and Saint had no real choice but to accept the warning and return to his technical area.

The Villa Park away end, watching all of this unfold on the big screen, erupted in laughter.

That laughter got drowned out fast, though, replaced by a wall of jeers from the home stands; worth remembering, this was Reading’s own ground, and their own supporters weren’t in a forgiving mood.

A little over a month into the job, and Villa’s traveling support had already made their loyalty unmistakable; before kickoff, a section of the away end had unveiled a genuinely massive banner with Saint’s face printed across it.

Whatever the national press thought of him, Villa’s own fanbase had made their verdict plain. A month of results does more to win supporters over than any press conference ever could, and this banner was proof of exactly that shift.

Saint himself stayed characteristically level about all of it. He understood perfectly well how quickly that same banner could disappear if results turned, Ventham’s own fall from grace was a lesson still fresh enough to keep him honest about exactly how conditional this kind of support really was.