Chapter 58: All Crows Are Black

Saint had always considered himself even-tempered, genuinely patient in dealing with people. Becoming a manager, and specifically dealing with the press, had chipped away at that considerably.

By full time, Saint found himself almost eager for his post-match interviews now, a chance to spar with the same faces he’d already been sparring with all season, even though he’d technically seen half of them barely three hours earlier at the pre-match press conference.

More than that, the exact moment he’d said "Sorry... I’ve let you all down again" after the Wednesday match, Saint had realised something: the line worked. It landed better than any straightforward answer ever could, both as a jab and as genuine entertainment for himself.

The habit had taken root fast, barely a month and a half into the job, and needling the press had become something close to a reflex.

He couldn’t seem to help himself, honestly. There was something genuinely satisfying about it.

What Saint didn’t fully appreciate yet was how far that one line had already travelled. It had become, within weeks, something close to his signature, repeated, quoted, and increasingly recognised well beyond the Midlands.

Regional press picked it up almost immediately, but it had spread further than that too, enough that outlets outside England’s own football media had started running pieces on him, curious about the manager who’d turned a press conference into a running joke at his critics’ expense.

That coverage hadn’t come easily at first, though. Plenty of readers, early on, genuinely doubted the whole story. Thirty-one years old, and running a Championship club? People that age were meant to be settling into mid-career jobs, not managing professional football clubs.

Who genuinely believed someone this young could be doing this in English football, of all sports, a game notoriously resistant to handing real authority to anyone without the conventional playing pedigree behind them?

So, early on, plenty of skeptical readers wrote in accusing outlets of exaggerating, or outright inventing the story for clicks.

But as the coverage kept building, and as results kept validating it week after week, that skepticism gave way, some fans started actively seeking out Championship highlights just to see this for themselves, and eventually the story became simply undeniable.

Saint’s name had genuinely broken through into the wider football conversation by now. And with that visibility came the inevitable downside, outlets started running pieces suggesting he’d gone above his station, developed an ego to match the coverage, become difficult and inaccessible.

Well... that part, at least, wasn’t entirely fabricated. Saint had, in fact, turned down a fair number of interview requests recently, exclusives included.

Plenty of outlets had come calling over these past weeks, hoping to land the definitive profile piece. Saint had declined almost all of them.

For Saint, there was only one priority right now: winning matches, driving Villa toward automatic promotion, and eventually back into the Premier League where the club genuinely belonged.

Everything else took a back seat to that, interviews included, even from outlets he genuinely respected.

He’d been straightforward about his reasoning whenever he did decline: wait until the season ends, and he’d happily sit down properly. Some outlets accepted that gracefully. Others hadn’t.

Plenty of the pushiest requests, tellingly, came from outlets with no real history covering the club at all, parachuting in purely because Saint had become a story worth chasing, with zero prior interest in Villa’s actual football.

Saint understood exactly what that dynamic was. He had genuine respect for reporters who’d covered him honestly from the start, Reid chief among them, whose early, patient coverage had never once wavered.

But he felt no particular obligation toward outlets simply chasing the moment. He was already, by most national press standards, something close to public enemy number one in English football media, a few more disgruntled reporters wasn’t going to change his calculus much.

If anything, Saint had started keeping a mental list of exactly which outlets had tried to strong-arm access purely off the back of his sudden profile. Future requests from that list got exactly the treatment they’d earned.

After the Reading win, the squad travelled straight back to Birmingham, an afternoon kickoff had left plenty of daylight for the journey home.

"You’re not backing out again tonight, are you?" The moment Saint walked through his own front door, Jasper was already waiting, clearly bracing for exactly that answer.

"You’re really exhausting," Saint said, too tired to properly argue.

"Mate, I’m doing this for your own good... righteously saving your entire outlook on life here." Jasper struck a dramatically wounded pose.

"Fine, you win. Give me a minute... I need a shower first." Saint gestured at his rumpled kit, still smelling faintly of the pitch.

"Ha! Word’s already out, even the opposition players are calling you the human scrum machine now. New record, mate." Jasper grinned, entirely unbothered by his own joke.

Saint didn’t bother responding to that one, though he privately filed it away, less as a grudge against Jasper and more as a mental note about a certain group of players who’d apparently made a habit out of piling on him after every goal.

A shower, quick change, and Saint was back downstairs in barely ten minutes... no lingering, no fuss.

"Lee, you’re not actually wearing what I laid out for you." Jasper eyed him with visible disappointment. Saint’s usual wardrobe ran almost entirely toward plain and functional, which was exactly why Jasper had taken it upon himself to intervene.

"You laid something out?" Saint really hadn’t noticed. His wardrobe had two rough categories, formal and everything else, and he rarely looked past the surface layer of either.

"It’s literally on your chair," Jasper said, deflating slightly. "Never mind... this’ll do, I suppose. At least you look comfortable."

"Mate, tonight isn’t really about you... though obviously I care deeply about your happiness too, but my girlfriend’s set you up with someone really stunning, apparently." Jasper’s grand rescue mission clearly wasn’t finished yet.

"Stunning? Has she actually met this person?" Saint knew Jasper’s taste well enough by now to be skeptical on principle.

"Not personally, no. But my girlfriend vouches for her completely," Jasper said, entirely earnest.

"Look... I really think I’ve found the real thing with her. Even if you’re not doing this for yourself, do it for me. I actually mean this one." Jasper’s tone shifted, suddenly and unmistakably sincere.

"Fine. I’ll go." Saint had known Jasper long enough to recognise the type... genuinely charming, endlessly social, rarely serious about any one person for longer than a season. In two years, Saint had watched a rotating cast of nearly a dozen different women pass through Jasper’s life.

Which made this moment really strange. Jasper had never once, in all that time, sounded quite this earnest about introducing anyone to anybody.

Jasper’s family wealth meant designer labels barely registered as an expense for him; but for someone like Saint, who treated an old football kit and a Fiesta as the height of personal luxury, even the cheapest high-street gear would have felt like an upgrade.

This time, though, Jasper had clearly put real thought into it... a proper wool overcoat sat waiting on that chair, and Saint actually liked the look of it, purely for football reasons.

Mourinho had made a real habit of that exact silhouette on the touchline; long coat, collar up, total command of the technical area. Saint had never been a particular admirer of the man personally, but there was no denying the coat looked genuinely sharp doing its job.

Since taking this job, Saint had more than once caught himself wondering whether a coat like that might do something useful for his own presence on the touchline too.