Chapter 112: Youth Guard

The more polite Garrity was, the more they had to turn their guns back on Saint to keep the story alive.

Saint read all of it over breakfast and smiled. It didn’t bother him. What he wanted was the one thing he had always wanted, which was a result on the pitch, and in a few days he’d have his chance to get it.

After a full season of rebuilding work, Villa Park was finally fully open again, which meant Villa were back playing at home in the top flight.

The supporters didn’t make much noise about the redevelopment. Even with Villa back in the Premier League and the new stands finally standing, nobody was queuing up to blame Whitlock for anything this year.

To bring in more money from the new stands, Whitlock had added an extra tier of executive boxes, which pushed some supporters further from the pitch than they’d been before. A few fans grumbled, but only a few.

Whitlock now had some regrets of his own. He had never imagined Saint could take the club back up so quickly, and the ticket numbers showed it. Season tickets alone had sold twenty-eight thousand, in a ground that held forty-two thousand.

For the opening game, against a giant that nobody gave Villa a hope of beating, the stadium still filled completely.

To show his support, Whitlock sat in the directors’ box above the main stand, with United’s chairman and chief executive beside him. They had little to do with Saint. He didn’t care whether they came or not, and neither affected the game.

Downstairs, in the home dressing room, Saint and his players were making their final preparations.

"United are the best team in the country and probably in Europe. They’re the champions of Europe, lads, and this is your chance to show yourselves to the world."

It was a stirring speech. Which young player hasn’t dreamed of making a name for himself, of making the world remember who he is?

The nerves on the players’ faces slowly turned into excitement.

Saint’s mouth twitched into a small curve, a faintly scheming expression, but the young players were too caught up in the moment to notice.

The veterans noticed. Teale, Reyes and Pryce all had managers’ minds, and they saw it straight away.

Meanwhile, in a London studio, Gary Pemberton, Alan Judd and their guest analyst, former international Phil Granger, were getting ready to take the whole country through the match.

"Supporters up and down the country have been waiting a long time for this one," Pemberton said, looking at the camera. Three seats and a full studio crew showed how much weight the broadcaster put on the fixture.

"They have. United are the champions of Europe and the domestic cup holders as well, and their manager has become the face of English football’s new generation," Judd said.

"But we all know that part. I think most viewers are more interested in the opponents, the newly promoted side from the Midlands," Pemberton said.

"Many people forget just how big Villa once were. In the early eighties they were champions of England, and then champions of Europe," Judd said.

"Of course, it isn’t the club’s past that has everyone’s attention. It’s the man sitting in the home dugout," Pemberton said.

"Saint Maddox is thirty-one, which makes him the youngest manager in the league by a distance. He has also been coaching for barely two years," Judd said. Most viewers knew these facts already from the profile shows.

"And this is his first Premier League match, against United of all teams," Pemberton said.

"Phil, do you give Villa a chance?" Judd asked.

"Honestly, a very small one. United are strong in every position, probably the strongest side in Europe," Granger said, and he wasn’t wrong. This United side wasn’t old at all.

Their captain, at thirty-five, was still in superb form. His centre-back partner, twenty-seven, was at the peak of his powers. A twenty-four-year-old in midfield was beginning to look like a real master, and if the strikers stayed fit, the two of them up front were frightening.

There was also a future star of world football in the United side. Two months after arriving from Brazil, the young playmaker had already won the manager’s trust, and today he would replace the veteran number ten in the starting eleven.

"And Saint’s team is hard to understand," Granger went on. United had named something close to their strongest eleven, but the Villa line-up left Granger baffled, and probably Garrity too.

Villa’s starting eleven were all young. In goal was Vacek, and nobody could object to that, since Vacek had been much better than Hartley in training.

The back four, from left to right, were Faraday, Lindley, Barzley and Colley.

"From what I’ve checked, this Lindley played in midfield last season, and Colley has only occasionally been used at right-back," Granger said. His preparation was thorough, with a pile of notes on almost every Villa player.

"They’re young, too. The average age of that back four is barely twenty-one, and the oldest of them, Colley, is only twenty-six," Judd said.

The midfield was younger still: Carver, Conlan, Rocher and Lavelle, with an average age of only twenty-one.

Of the front line, the oldest was Tomlin at twenty-six, with Osei beside him at twenty-two. Together that made an average age of twenty-four.

So across the whole eleven, Villa’s average age sat in the early twenties, making this the youngest starting side in the Premier League this season.

Youth Guard, the papers had called them, and the nickname wasn’t unfair. Even counting the veterans, Villa were the youngest squad in the league, and in the whole twenty-four-man group, only Teale, Reyes, Pryce and Jurek were over thirty.

Yet for the most important match of Saint’s career, his first in the Premier League and the club’s first game back in the top flight after so long, none of those four veterans were in the starting eleven.

And there were no reports of any injuries in the Villa camp.