Chapter 103: The Holiday’s Over

"It’s well known that Teale and Reyes were bitter rivals for years, representing two of the biggest clubs in English football back in their day." Gary Pemberton posed the question from the British Sports Network studio.

"Honestly, I just want to see what happens when they end up on the same side," Saint said, perfectly straight-faced.

"Ha, only joking, obviously. Marcus and Marco are both excellent professionals. They might have been rivals once, but they’re Villa players now, and their attitude is exactly what I’d want any of our young lads learning from. I trust them to handle that relationship properly between themselves," Saint added once the host seemed briefly lost for a follow-up.

"If you look closely at Villa’s business this summer, you’ll notice we brought in a lot of young talent, and lads like that need proper experienced heads like Marcus and Marco around them to help bring them on," Saint continued.

"I heard every single signing Villa made this summer went through you personally." The second host, Alan Judd, picked up the thread this time.

"That’s right. As head coach, nobody understands what this squad needs better than I do, and I trust my own judgment on a player. Give it a few years, and I think people will look back and realise just how good this current group really was," Saint said.

Confident. Almost unnervingly so. Pemberton and Judd had both clocked early on that this particular young manager was built differently from most, but the longer they spent in his company, the more that impression only deepened.

"So what are your expectations heading into the new season?" The recording was winding down by this point.

"Expectations? Staying up, obviously. We’ve just come up from the Championship, survival is the only realistic ambition," Saint said, and he meant it sincerely.

"Well, we’re certainly hoping you and Villa manage exactly that," Judd said, though neither host actually believed survival was all Saint was aiming for. Confidence like his rarely settled for mere survival.

Still, both men were seasoned broadcasters, professionals who understood better than most that certain things were better left unsaid out loud, however obvious they seemed.

Most listeners tuning in would likely have found that answer a little deflating. In the popular imagination, staying up wasn’t a real ambition; fighting for silverware was supposedly what every manager and every club ought to be chasing.

The brutal realities of English football rarely registered with the average supporter, mostly because their attention stayed fixed on the traditional giants of the game.

This recording for the network turned out to be Saint’s final media stop of the trip. Over his last two days in the country, nearly every interview had circled back to some version of the same handful of questions.

"Saint, be honest, survival’s really the whole target?" Pemberton asked once the cameras stopped rolling, sounding genuinely unconvinced.

"Course not," Saint said, dropping the diplomatic answer instantly.

"Don’t bother pushing for more, either of you. I’m not saying another word on it now, the season’ll speak for itself soon enough," Saint said, cutting off both hosts before they could press further.

After everything that had happened the previous season, Saint had learned one lesson above all others: never put an artificial ceiling on yourself in public.

"Fair enough, we won’t push. But I promise you this, we won’t miss a single Villa match this season," Pemberton said finally.

After wrapping things up, Saint joined the production crew for dinner. The network crew were a different breed from the tabloid press entirely, and besides, there was still time to kill before his flight.

He didn’t head straight back to Italy either; sorry, England; after this. Two more days of obligations still remained, giving him just enough time to properly get to know a few new faces he’d met along the way.

If he was honest with himself, the main draw for sticking around a little longer was that a couple of those new faces happened to be strikingly attractive, including one or two he’d admired from a distance long before any of this.

After the market incident, Saint had swapped numbers with Eve Lindqvist and Rachel Osei. Both were attached to a drama currently filming nearby, and given the noise Saint had generated locally, there was no chance they hadn’t already heard exactly who he was.

Apparently, word had spread fast through the whole production once Saint’s face started dominating the news cycle, plenty of people on set had spent the past few days talking about little else. A Premier League manager personally delivering their takeaway order was, admittedly, a difficult story to top.

It wasn’t just the cast either; several crew members were kicking themselves over missed photo opportunities, though nobody regretted it more than the show’s own director.

Given the chance again, that director would have found some excuse to get Saint an actual cameo in the production. A real Premier League manager making a guest appearance on his show practically wrote its own headline.

Saint’s family, meanwhile, were caught completely off guard by his return. They’d all assumed he would fly straight back to Birmingham once his media obligations wrapped.

"Cousin, I want to come to England with you," Chloe said quietly, tugging at his sleeve.

"Yeah, course," Saint said, happy to have her along.

"Mum and Dad won’t let me, though," Chloe admitted, which told Saint exactly what she was actually asking him to do.

"Relax, I’ll bring Linda along too," Saint said. In truth, so long as Saint himself asked properly, Derek was never going to say no.

Linda hadn’t wanted Chloe travelling alone in the first place, worried she’d end up more of a burden on Saint than a help. Over the two days Saint had been away for his media commitments, she and Derek had gotten a clearer picture of just how demanding his new life actually was.

Management wasn’t a secure career by any stretch. Saint might be the hero of the moment at Villa right now, but one bad run of results in the Premier League and that same adoration could curdle fast.

Which made this particular summer critical for Saint, rebuilding the squad properly, especially with nearly two thirds of last season’s group already moved on.

So once Saint made the case himself, Derek and Linda agreed to let Chloe make the trip out to visit.

Saint had originally hoped Linda herself might come along too, but the restaurant couldn’t run without her, not with Derek buried in the kitchen most of every day as it was.

That evening, the gathering grew well beyond just the two actresses, the director and several of the other leads turned up as well. Not all of them were genuine football fans, but Saint’s run of headlines over the past few days had been impossible to ignore, and most of the younger cast were still relative newcomers themselves.

Plenty of them would go on to become proper household names eventually, but for now they were all still finding their feet, and the thing that mattered most in the room that night was that most of them were roughly the same age as Saint, two of the male leads had been born the very same year as him.

As for the director, he was a genuine fan through and through, and he still couldn’t quite process that the unassuming delivery driver who’d turned up at his set days earlier was genuinely the same man currently being hailed as one of English football’s brightest young managers.

Saint didn’t mind the crowd one bit, if anything. Sure, it meant fewer quiet moments alone with either actress, but he’d come away with a handful of new friends regardless, and the two male leads closest to him in age made the whole evening feel easy in a way few nights recently had.