Chapter 71: Situation After the Losing Streak

The press had a field day with this one. Villa had lost again, Saint’s first genuine losing run of his managerial career, two straight defeats.

3-1 this time, a different scoreline from the previous match but the same two-goal margin of defeat, though the nature of this loss looked noticeably different.

In the Derby defeat, Villa had been disjointed from start to finish; half-hearted going forward, sloppy in defence, an attitude that had bordered on indifferent.

By the end of this second match, that same slack mentality had largely burned off. The players had visibly worked harder throughout; some genuine urgency creeping back into their play, even if the result went against them regardless.

Whatever fortune had carried Villa through those first two wins of this run had well and truly run out with this second defeat. Two straight losses had finally cut through the fog; the players understood, plainly, that the flattering coverage of the past few weeks had been exactly what Saint warned them it was: a manufactured trap, dressed up as praise.

So after this match, unprompted, the Villa dressing room came to Saint themselves and owned it.

"Good to see you’ve finally recognised it. You haven’t completely let me down." Saint’s expression stayed easy, almost warm, but something underneath that tone sent a genuine chill through the room.

Three months with Saint had taught this squad plenty about how he operated, and every player in that room understood exactly what came next for anyone who didn’t take the lesson to heart.

There was already a warning sitting in the reserves as proof. One player, a young forward on loan who’d let his effort slide, had been sent down there weeks earlier without ceremony. Another, a midfielder who’d held down a regular starting spot under Ventham, had been dropped entirely after complaining to the press about his role, and found himself following the same path shortly after.

Neither had staged any real resistance to it. Whatever grievances either carried, Saint’s results had made pushing back look increasingly pointless.

"Right. Now that you’ve owned it, let’s make sure this last stretch counts." Saint’s tone shifted, and the room visibly settled.

With the loss to Derby, only three rounds remained in the season, and this second defeat had effectively ended Villa’s title challenge for the year.

Two straight defeats had left Villa stuck on fifty-four points, unmoved, while Derby’s win over them had stretched the gap between the two clubs to ten.

The title race itself was still genuinely open, since the sides above Villa; Derby and the current second-place side, were only six and seven points clear respectively, with plenty of football left to play out among themselves.

Villa’s own league position hadn’t shifted with this defeat, still fourth. Millwall, their most direct threat for that final automatic spot, had stumbled through their own last two matches and now sat a single point behind.

Several other clubs still had a mathematical claim on Villa’s position too; Wednesday, Leeds, and a resurgent Coventry side were all clustered above fifty points, with three rounds still plenty of time to change the picture.

"Lee... we’re still getting promoted, right?" The next morning, as Saint made his way out to the car, Danny, Marcus, and Owen were waiting outside his house again.

Since taking the Villa job, Saint’s day-to-day contact with the three of them had naturally thinned; manager and supporter, it turns out, is a harder gap to bridge than coach and fan ever was.

Their relationship these days ran mostly through the old fish stall, Danny still made a point of setting aside the best of each week’s catch whenever Saint came round.

"Course we are, lads. These last two results are a blip; some poison the press managed to slip into the squad, nothing more. Trust me, we’re back on track from the next match, and we’re finishing this season in the Premier League." Saint’s expression carried its usual certainty.

"Right... we’ll let you get on, then." Something in Saint’s tone visibly settled all three of them, and they let him go with genuine smiles on their faces.

That should have been the end of it, but a message from Danny landed on Saint’s phone not long after he’d pulled away.

"Whatever happens, we’ve got your back." Clearly, whatever reassurance Saint had offered in person hadn’t fully settled Danny’s own private nerves about this losing run.

Saint’s confidence wasn’t manufactured for the occasion, though; it was genuinely earned, because Villa’s remaining fixtures simply weren’t that demanding.

Three matches left: a mid-table side just above the drop, a struggling club near the bottom, and a side with nothing left to play for. None of those opponents worried him much.

The nearest threat, on paper, sat only two points behind Villa; but that side had visibly run out of steam, winning just once in their last five matches.

Facing opposition this manageable, there was no version of a properly focused Villa squad failing to respond, and Saint was confident the previous two results had jolted his players back into exactly that state.

That read was confirmed the moment training resumed. The whole squad worked with a visible intensity that day; sharp, focused, genuinely hard-edged, to the point that Saint occasionally had to pull sessions back before they turned into something closer to full-contact matches.

"No... these two defeats haven’t really shaken us. My target from day one was promotion, not the title. Without that extra pressure hanging over us now, we can put our full focus into securing one of those top-two spots." Facing the press afterward, that particular line was one Sallow and Whitlock both privately welcomed.

"Lee, that’s genuinely how you see it?" Sallow still sounded slightly unconvinced.

"We’ll know for certain after the next match." Words only carry so much weight. Results settle arguments that talk never can.

Over the following days, whatever noise churned on outside the training ground had little bearing on Saint’s own routine; home, training ground, and repeat, often staying well past dark most evenings.

Grace hadn’t stayed in Birmingham long this time. Before the Derby match, she’d already boarded a flight back out, work commitments pulling her elsewhere again.

Riding the wave of Saint’s profile, Grace had genuinely started building real momentum in her own career, the volume of work coming her way over these past weeks made that plain enough.

Saint had grown used to these goodbyes by now. There was no question Grace’s presence made his life genuinely better, in every sense; lighter, fuller, something worth coming home to.

But right now, his focus needed to sit almost entirely on the run-in. Securing that top-two finish outright, sealing automatic promotion, mattered more than anything else in his life at this exact moment.

If anything, her leaving when she did meant one less thing pulling at his attention during the most important stretch of the season, a silver lining, even if not one he’d ever say out loud to her directly.