Chapter 72: They’re Back

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! They’re back! Villa are back, and they’ve just told the entire division so with an opening statement of a goal!"

"Lavelle! Barely two minutes in, and the young Frenchman has broken the deadlock!"

"Whitfield with the setup... a lovely disguised pass just outside the box, faking the long-range effort to drag the defence in before slipping it through instead."

"There’s something familiar about this, isn’t there? We’ve seen this exact pattern before... Villa striking early, and every time it’s happened before, it’s ended one way." The early goal carried an unmistakable echo of those earlier routs.

"Ha! Look at Saint go... springs in his legs today, straight up and out of his seat the second that ball hit the net." Saint had abandoned his usual composed stillness entirely, arms pumping as he celebrated Lavelle’s goal from the touchline.

Along the press row, meanwhile, a crowd had reassembled that hadn’t been seen in weeks. After Villa’s two-game losing streak, every outlet that had drifted away from covering them regularly had come flooding straight back.

They hadn’t come to root for Saint or Villa, though. Having missed the chance to watch Villa’s title challenge collapse in real time, none of them were willing to miss the promotion race unravelling too, if it was going to happen, they wanted front-row seats.

"Is this man actually sent to torment us personally?" More than one reporter along that row muttered something close to a genuine prayer for deliverance.

"Absolutely insufferable... I swear, this is the last one of these matches I ever cover," one reporter grumbled, not for the first time this season.

Whatever they said in the moment, everyone knew they’d be back next week regardless. Enduring Saint, and whatever infuriating result Villa produced next, had simply become part of the job now.

A few in that press pack clung to the hope that this opening goal was a fluke, nothing more. Villa wasted no time proving exactly how wrong that hope was.

The press had leaned hard on flattery as a weapon these past weeks, banking on it to drive a wedge between Saint and his younger players. What they’d consistently underestimated was exactly how deep Saint’s command of that dressing room actually ran.

His grip on this squad had reached the point where genuine division simply wasn’t achievable from outside anymore. Whatever the press tried, the players trusted their manager more than any headline.

This wasn’t some fractured super-club dressing room either, riddled with egos and internal rivalries. Villa’s squad was still, at its core, a tight-knit group without the kind of star power that usually breeds division, every player in that room answered to the same man, and every player respected him.

Millwall, Villa’s nearest challenger, weren’t a weak side by any means, they wouldn’t have been sitting where they were in the table otherwise. Going into this match, only two points separated the two clubs, which meant this result alone could swing the standings meaningfully either way.

But conceding inside the opening two minutes of a match this important was about as damaging a start as any side could ask for.

Millwall’s own manager hadn’t exactly built a reputation for handling pressure gracefully either; their recent form told its own story, a side that had visibly wilted the closer this fixture approached.

Millwall’s manager, a decorated former player in his own right, had once again proven the old football truth: a great playing career guarantees nothing in the dugout.

Given Villa’s own two-game losing streak heading into this match, this should have been Millwall’s ideal opportunity to close the gap. Instead, their own manager seemed to buckle under exactly the moment that demanded composure most.

Opportunity doesn’t wait around for anyone, and missing it is nobody’s fault but your own. Millwall carried real quality, but the gap to Villa was real too; and Villa’s players, freshly humbled by two defeats, were playing with a hunger that made that gap even harder to close.

Once play resumed, Millwall never found their footing. Their attacking strength had always run through the flanks, genuinely dangerous wide players, the kind who wouldn’t look out of place at a higher level.

Villa, though, had their own strength out wide, and it proved decisive. With Rocher and Lavelle stifling Millwall’s usual outlets, their attack simply had nowhere to go. Saint had also deployed a more defensively disciplined pairing at full-back for this particular match, further shutting the door.

With their wings neutralised, Millwall’s whole attacking rhythm collapsed. Villa, by contrast, had strength running through every third of the pitch; flanks, midfield, and a genuinely potent front line.

Villa’s second goal arrived before long. Seventeenth minute, and Whitfield delivered another long, precise pass. Delgado collected it, turned his man with real physicality, and drove forward.

Delgado’s physical conditioning had come on considerably, and Millwall’s back line, for all their pace, couldn’t match him for size or strength. He read the moment perfectly, rather than force a difficult finish himself, he found the better option.

He squared it just as Millwall’s defenders converged. Coming in from deep at pace, a blur arrived at exactly the right moment, Okoro, who’d timed his run from Delgado’s blind side perfectly. Millwall’s defenders, fixated entirely on Delgado, never picked him up at all.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! GOAL! GOAL! Villa’s second of the afternoon!"

"Okoro! Delgado’s unselfish square ball finds him completely unmarked... Millwall’s defence simply lost track of him entirely."

"Villa’s second, and this match is playing out exactly the way we’ve come to expect from this side. Based on everything we’ve seen this season, there shouldn’t be much doubt left in this one."

That confidence proved slightly premature. After that second goal, Villa’s attacking edge seemed to dull somewhat for the remainder of the half.

Villa still controlled the match comfortably, but the killer instinct that had produced two goals in the opening quarter-hour didn’t return before the break; though, to their credit, Millwall didn’t manage to threaten Villa’s own goal either.

"Don’t overthink it... you’ve done everything right so far. Second half, stay patient. No need to force the game to be over before it actually is." Back in the dressing room, Saint kept his message simple.

The real reason Villa hadn’t extended the lead further in that first half was fairly straightforward; with the game seemingly already won, a few players had started playing it safe rather than pushing to bury the tie completely.

"And it should matter to Millwall too... if they lose here, this promotion race is effectively over for them." A Millwall defeat would stretch Villa’s cushion over them to five points.

Millwall technically retained a mathematical path back into it. But with only two, comfortably manageable fixtures left on Villa’s own calendar after this one, that path had narrowed to almost nothing.