Chapter 153: Crash

"GOAL! And again! Villa have scored again! Two goals in the first half-hour!"

Two-nil. That was the score at Pride Park, and the game had barely passed twenty minutes.

"Two goals in five minutes!" It had come so fast that the whole Derby side had been unable to respond.

Villa’s fierce start had finally paid off in the sixteenth minute, and it was Rocher who scored the first.

Saint’s closest player, the absolute core of the match, Rocher had shown superb technique, and a core like him needed a partner to go with it.

It was no exaggeration. In Villa’s wild attacking spell over those opening twenty minutes, Rocher alone had carried almost half the play, and he was also the man his opponents had kicked most often.

Many of the injuries a player like that would pick up were foreseeable, because his style practically invited them. But it was different now. Rocher was under Saint’s wing, and Saint had the system at his back.

After receiving a pass from a team-mate, Rocher dummied the ball and then played a one-two with Lavelle outside the area. Rocher burst into the box.

Facing a Derby centre-half, he dragged the ball across half a yard with his studs and hit it hard. The shot flew into the far corner, and the Derby goalkeeper could only watch it sail into the net he was supposed to be guarding.

After that goal, Villa did not do what they had done before, easing off to let the opponent come out and fight. Instead they chased the win and carried on attacking.

Four minutes later, in the twentieth minute, the lead was doubled, and this time the scorer was Salerno.

Reyes sent a long, straight ball over the top. Reyes’s direct passing was well known in the game, and when he saw Salerno making a run on Derby’s back line like a peregrine falcon, Reyes pulled the trigger without a second thought.

Salerno was not a natural, instinctive striker, but he had weapons of his own, namely explosiveness and speed.

With that burst of pace he still got to the ball and ran into Derby’s penalty area, one on one with the goalkeeper.

Two-nil. Salerno did not waste the chance. He kept his head up, waited for the goalkeeper to commit himself, and calmly rolled the ball past him.

Progress. This was Salerno’s progress this year. Under Saint’s training plan he had not improved dramatically, but compared with what he had been, he had got better at taking his chances.

Salerno wheeled away with his arms spread wide, and the small knot of Villa supporters in the corner of Pride Park roared back at him. Rocher was first to reach him, and Lavelle jumped on both of them a second later.

On the bench, Cadman turned to Saint with a grin he did not bother to hide. "Two up inside twenty, and we haven’t even needed Pryce yet."

"Don’t say that too loudly," Saint said. "Derby are still Derby, and a home crowd that’s been told it’s embarrassed is a dangerous thing."

"His sixth goal! Salerno has overtaken Tomlin as Villa’s top scorer!" Tomlin had five in the league.

But there was a big difference between the two. Tomlin’s goals had come against a variety of opponents, while half of Salerno’s came from the hat-trick at Anfield.

That was the fundamental difference. Tomlin was steady, sustainable output, but Salerno might go quiet for weeks after a burst.

And Saint was a man with a scout’s eyes. Though Salerno had improved this year, it had not been by much, and Saint could tell that from the fact his grade had not changed. Tomlin was an A and still an A-plus, one step nearer to an S.

In truth, since the Liverpool game, Salerno’s agent had been leaning on Villa and on Saint, hoping to get his client more game time.

There were even rumours that the agent had turned up at a big club and met a senior figure there. Of course, that was only a rumour.

Salerno’s agent was busy, but Salerno himself had never stood up and said anything. In an interview he had even said he was happy at Villa.

Whether that was sincere only Salerno knew. After all, what Saint had done with Okoro last season was still fresh in everyone’s memory, and Salerno did not want to be the next man sent off to Norwich.

His chances were not scarce, to be fair. Pryce was a veteran, and Saint rarely let him play ninety minutes. Even Teale was often rotated for a rest.

At present the only man who never rested was Reyes, but Reyes was not that old compared with Teale and Pryce, and Saint had spent system points on his body. The result was that Reyes was not only free of trouble, he was getting better.

Reyes was in good shape, but there was another reason too, which was that Monroe was still too raw, especially in his transitions when the ball was lost. Monroe adjusted very slowly.

In fact Monroe’s progress over these weeks had been obvious. The trouble was that Saint’s standards were too high, and that held the young man back.

On top of that, Villa needed a win and so did Saint, which had narrowed Monroe’s room to grow even further.

If it had not been for the five-match ban, nobody would have known how much longer Monroe’s first league start would have been put off, so it had to be said that the ban had been very good news for the young players and the reserves.

Those five rounds had also shown Saint a great deal. The veterans did help the current side enormously, but if you did not give the young ones a chance, and if you would not buy new players yourself, you were wasting other people’s careers.

Saint did not shout at his players to push forward again. He simply stood in the technical area with his hands in his pockets and watched, and Cadman noticed that the man beside him looked more like someone listening for a sound than watching a game.

Of course, that was not something to fret about now. For Saint and for Villa, the first thing was to finish settling this score with Derby. Only with a big enough lead would the youngsters get room to show what they could do.

After going two goals up, Villa finally eased off. The strong spell of twenty minutes had taken the players to a critical point, and even if they did not score again, Saint wanted them to slow the rhythm.

Besides, the position was already very good. In that situation a defensive counter-attack was the safest approach, because it kept things steady and let the team get its energy back.

With Villa dropping off, Derby naturally did not let the chance go. They had nothing to lose, being two goals down.

Pellew strode to the touchline waving his arms, and for a full twenty minutes Derby at last showed the spirit a home side should.

But for all their energy, they were a long way from praiseworthy when it came to taking their chances. In the end, the score was still 2-0.