Chapter 144: Four Defeats

Four wins, then four defeats. Villa’s start to the season was definitely a ride with ups and downs.

After losing to Manchester City, Villa travelled to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, and this match was different from the last in that the veterans were sitting on the bench.

From the starting eleven you could read Cadman’s choice. Perhaps that decision would not make him a good manager, but one thing Saint was sure of was that Cadman could definitely be a great assistant.

Wrong, it would be better to say Cadman was an excellent coach. After the start of the season, he had not been crushed by the burden, and he and Saint worked together even more smoothly than before.

Because the two men had come up together through the youth team, they had a natural understanding, and Cadman had finally found the right partner.

1-2, that was the score after ninety minutes. As for the match itself, Villa’s young players had not been bad, and the veterans watching from the bench, Reyes and Teale among them, had applauded every decent move.

In the thirty-third minute of the first half, Ortega put Villa in front. The young Argentine took a pass from Lavelle inside the area and broke the deadlock.

But once the second half began, things changed dramatically. Sunderland launched a ferocious counter-attack after the break and turned the score around.

After the match, the press blamed Saint.

The reason was easy to find. The youngsters were a perfect excuse.

In the papers’ version, Saint had forced Cadman to start young players before the game so that Cadman could not win.

As an assistant, Cadman naturally could not resist the manager’s decision, they said.

Not long after, the papers were beaten back, because Cadman stood up personally to explain that it had been his own decision to start the young players.

Hopeless. In the eyes of the press, Cadman had become a complete fool.

In fact, the press had overlooked one thing. Without Saint, Cadman would probably still be with the youth team, because he was only thirty-eight.

And now? From a youth-team coach nobody had noticed to assistant at a Premier League club, all of it was thanks to Saint.

A week later Villa welcomed Hull City, their old Championship rivals, and Cadman once again fielded an almost entirely young side.

Even Marlow and Ashby got their first league starts. It was the first time since joining Villa that either had started a Premier League game, though they had both started in the League Cup before.

The two performed well enough. Marlow looked a little raw, but already there was a sense of him organising the midfield.

Ashby was not bad either. Villa scored in the game, and the goal came from Ashby and Fenwick pulling the Hull defence apart, Ortega being fed by Salerno, who pushed the ball in near the penalty spot.

But the goal had no effect on the result, because the score was still 1-2 and Villa were a goal down, with the game already into stoppage time.

In the home dressing room, the young players sat with their heads down, and nobody said a word until Cadman walked in, closed the door behind him and looked around. Marlow had a towel over his head. Ashby kept staring at the floor between his boots.

"Right," Cadman said. "Who here thinks they played badly?"

Nobody answered. After a moment Marlow lifted the towel, and quietly put his hand up.

"Good. Honest. Anybody else?" A couple of hands went up. "Now who thinks they learned something today?" Every hand went up.

"Then it was a good afternoon’s work," Cadman said. "We lost, and we’ll lose again at some point this season, but you’ll all be better for it. Heads up. Showers."

When the door closed behind him, he leaned against the wall in the corridor and let out a very long breath.

At the post-match press conference, when the reporters saw the listless Cadman again, they looked disappointed. They no longer expected anything from the interview.

Strangely, almost every one of them found Saint appearing in their minds, and they could not help thinking, what would happen if Saint were here? What would he say?

Wait, that was not right. This man had apparently never lost three in a row.

In the Championship, the longest losing run under Saint had been two games, and that was only because of the opposition.

"Ugh, ugh, how could I think about that fellow?" But soon the press chased the shameful thought out of their heads.

Still, missing Saint was useless, because his ban was not over. Four of the five league games had gone by, and the last one was against the third of the league’s real giants, Liverpool.

The Daily Courier had a point, in that Chelsea were not a real giant. As far as the league was concerned, there were only three clubs who could truly be called giants.

There was a glorious small world of big clubs and plenty of old names, but as time went on, only three still really stood at the top of the tower.

Although Liverpool had lost a great star the year before, they were still packed with talent. Ned Hargreaves, the old war horse up front, was the most frightening target man in the country. His form had begun to dip this season, but he was still outstanding.

And besides Hargreaves there was Adriel Santos, the young Brazilian. It would be impossible to deny that in the right season he was a terror, and if he kept his pace and stayed clear of trouble he had every ability to chase the title of the country’s best striker.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with Saint, who did not go with the team to Merseyside. He watched the entire game at home, on his sofa, a cold cup of tea beside him.

Although Saint had been mentally prepared for a defeat, Villa’s players gave him plenty of surprises, because they nearly overturned Liverpool at Anfield.

5-4, the home team ahead, the visitors behind.

Nine goals in all, the most goals in a Premier League match so far this season.

Hat-tricks, two of them. Santos scored his first for Liverpool.

On Villa’s side it was Salerno who completed the hat-trick. Villa’s striker had played like a gift from heaven, and the whole of Anfield was left stunned.

But in the end it was Hargreaves who really settled it. In the dying moments, the old war horse showed his strength, pushing Rami aside to head home and open the door that Vacek had been guarding.

The fourth goal for each side was scored by a defender, Kyle Denholm for Liverpool, and Ortega for Villa.

Seeing that, Saint could not help a flicker of strangeness, because the Villa players who had scored were men he remembered from another life playing for big clubs, and Ortega in particular had really climbed into the ranks of the top strikers.

"Yes, after this game the big clubs will not be able to ignore either of them," Saint thought, suddenly.

On the sofa, the phone lit up with a text from Cadman. It said only: "We lost, but we scored four at Anfield."

Saint looked at it for a moment, and typed back: "We scored four at Anfield with a young team. Come and have a cup of tea."