Chapter 151: Difficult Road

"GOAL! It’s in! Martin Alder! Norwich have got a second goal in this match!"

"It’s a consolation, but it’s a consolation for the old master who has worked his socks off all afternoon."

Four-two. By the time the scorer wheeled away, Villa had already scored three, and the fourth had come from Teale, the centre-half rising to meet a corner and heading it home.

This match seemed to have been written for the veterans. Alder was a veteran, Pryce was one, and so was Teale. The only young man in the main cast was Tomlin.

"It’s over! The final whistle has gone! Four-two! Villa’s players have used four goals to welcome their manager home!" That was obviously the wrong way to put it. Saint had used a big win to show everyone what he meant to this club.

Only two minutes after Alder’s goal, Andy Pargeter blew for full time.

"Saint! Saint! Saint!" When the game was over, that was how the Holte End chose to welcome back its manager.

"Ha ha! Villa have veterans and they have young talent, but the one man the fans truly love in this side is the gaffer."

Saint had made his name at Villa, and what did that mean? It meant he was one of their own. In football, being "one of our own" can matter a great deal.

Of course, the real reason the fans called him one of their own was the results. He had taken the team from the edge of relegation to the Premier League, and the whole squad had been built by his hand. This young side had not won anything yet, but from promotion to this afternoon’s performance, Villa supporters had every reason to look forward.

"Martin is a great player, and Norwich are a respectable opponent. And Roy Fenner? I know exactly how good he is," Saint said in his post-match interview, and his praise was no mere politeness.

Norwich had given Villa plenty of trouble. Alder was old, but his touch was still superb, and if Fenner could ever fully take control of his side, the result might have gone differently. But there are no ifs in this game. A win is a win and a loss is a loss.

Back in the tunnel after the interview, Saint shot Pryce a pained look. Was the old man confused? He had played very well, scored a goal, and won the corner that led to Teale’s header.

Pryce could never have guessed that his manager’s sulk was about a shirt. After the whistle, Pryce and Alder had swapped, and that had wrecked Saint’s plan.

Saint had no intention of asking Alder for it himself, of course; that would have been embarrassing. So he had gone to Rocher and asked the Frenchman to do the swapping for him. By the time Saint found Rocher, though, Alder and Pryce were already pulling their shirts over their heads.

Afterwards Rocher did have a word with Pryce, but Pryce did not hand the shirt over, out of respect for Alder. As for Saint, Pryce knew his manager well enough, and he certainly was not going to take offence at something so trivial.

Besides, Saint did not have time to dwell on such small matters. Only ten rounds had gone, Villa had a long way to go, and next up were Derby County, who had come up alongside them.

When the two sides had met in the Championship last season, Villa had won, and there was a score of a different kind to settle, which was the table.

Derby, after ten rounds, had three wins, four draws and three defeats, thirteen points and ninth place. They had not been much changed by promotion, and had settled in more easily than most.

By a coincidence, another promoted side had exactly the same points: Hull City, who had beaten Villa earlier in the season. The two clubs had been rivals in the Championship, and now they were rivals again, with the same points and the same record.

Of the clubs who had come up last summer, though, the best of the lot was Villa, who stood seventh after ten rounds with fifteen points. For a newly promoted side, that was an undoubted success.

Even a Villa who had lurched up and down all autumn could sit seventh in the table, and the club and its supporters had every reason to feel sincerely glad about it.

Of course, there are satisfied people and there are others. Saint, in his heart, thought that if he had not been suspended, Villa would be several places higher by now.

It was no fantasy. For all the giants at the top of the table, there were clubs above Villa that were not strong, and Saint wanted to play the biggest ones. Above all he wanted to play City, because he knew that if he wanted to make a mark on English football, he would have to get past them.

As a man who knew the future, Saint knew that in the years to come, English football would pass almost completely into City’s hands, and that in the end they would be the club that wore the whole league down.

So the difficulty of leading Villa to make a difference was easy to imagine. Pulling teeth would not begin to describe it.

But the harder the challenge, the more it fired Saint up. He wanted to see where his limit was, and for him it was a kind of whetstone.

Only two teams were still unbeaten in the Premier League: City and Arsenal, the top two. City had won eight and drawn two for twenty-six points, and Arsenal had drawn with City on the way to twenty-four.

In third place, naturally, sat one of the giants, Manchester United, with six wins, three draws and one defeat for twenty-one points. The team in the last Champions League place, fourth, had only twenty.

Saint did the sums quickly. In the five rounds of his ban, if Villa had taken just two more wins, they would be level with United and inside the top four.