Chapter 74: Preparing for the Second Match

When it came to the two clubs still chasing Villa from behind in the table, the press had suddenly discovered a newfound restraint. Not out of any real courtesy, reporters have never been shy about picking a fight, and being on the wrong end of one has never stopped them before.

It came down to who was worth the trouble. Go after a genuine A-list name, and every outlet fights for the scraps. Go after two mid-table strugglers nobody outside their own city cares about, and there’s no story worth chasing.

Watching the press decline to play along with the script he’d half-hoped for, Saint let the moment go with a shrug and moved on. He’d been angling for exactly this kind of easy back-and-forth with reporters lately, winding them up had become something close to a hobby by this stage of the season, and these particular fish just weren’t biting.

Round thirty-six brought a shake-up in the table, though not one that touched Villa directly, a swap between second and third place elsewhere in the division.

Ipswich, sitting second, had travelled to face a resurgent Coventry side. Coventry had entered the match a point behind Villa, which meant they too still carried a mathematical shot at the top four.

Coventry seized their moment, beating Ipswich outright; a result that tightened the whole race further and, as a bonus, handed a boost to the side directly above them too.

That side, sitting third, beat their own opponent comfortably and climbed to sixty points, cutting into Derby’s lead at the top in the process.

Derby themselves, meanwhile, had travelled to face a mid-table side and, whether out of complacency or genuine overconfidence in their title chances, produced an oddly flat ninety minutes, the match finished goalless.

Which kept the title race alive, even if barely. Derby’s draw left them on sixty-five points, with their nearest challenger now just five behind.

Derby’s cushion still looked comfortable enough on paper, though; only two rounds remained, and their two remaining fixtures were about as gentle as a run-in gets, against sides with nothing left to play for.

None of that title drama had any real bearing on Villa’s own situation. Villa’s priority remained straightforward: hold onto fourth. Despite beating Millwall convincingly, Villa’s own position in the table hadn’t moved; still fourth, with Coventry, Ipswich, and Leeds all still within striking distance behind them.

Publicly, in front of the press, Saint kept projecting total confidence. Privately, back among his own staff, there was no trace of that same swagger, no complacency toward either of Villa’s remaining opponents whatsoever.

Under normal circumstances, a win earned the squad a day off; Saint’s own rule, set from his very first week in charge. This time, he tore it up entirely, and training resumed the very next morning.

Nobody in the squad raised a word of complaint about it. With this much riding on the final stretch, and the Premier League now genuinely within reach, not one player in that dressing room had any appetite for a rest day.

With the players grinding through extra sessions, Saint and the rest of the coaching staff were working just as hard behind the scenes, running full sessions, then poring over scouting footage late into the evening.

Preparing for their next opponent, Saint had the entire staff pull every available match from that club’s whole season, and Saint himself barely left the training ground complex for most of that week.

While Villa buried themselves in preparation, the press outside kept themselves busy in their own way; this time, the Midlands Sports Gazette’s national rival led the charge.

"Villa’s Manager Shows His Opponents No Respect Whatsoever" — Sky Sports Digital.

Villa’s lead over the chasing pack wasn’t as commanding as it looked. Coventry, Ipswich, and Leeds were all still mathematically alive, any one of them capable of overtaking with the right results.

And yet, after the Millwall win, Saint had gone and publicly declared the promotion already secured. That kind of statement, the piece argued, wasn’t just disrespectful to the three clubs still chasing Villa directly, it dismissed the two clubs Villa still had left to actually play as an afterthought too.

Sky’s piece led the way, and the rest of the press quickly piled on behind it, some outlets sticking to the usual line about Saint’s arrogance, others turning their attention instead to building up Villa’s next opponent directly.

Even the local press covering that club’s own city got in on it, rallying their readers behind the idea of a giant-killing upset.

For a brief stretch, that club found itself one of the two most talked-about sides in the entire Championship.

And the other? Hardly worth asking. Villa, obviously.

Even with Saint keeping an uncharacteristically low public profile that week; barely a headline to his name beyond the one controversial quote, Villa’s story still dominated the conversation over both of their remaining opponents combined.

A week can drag painfully for a supporter counting down to a crucial fixture, especially with promotion on the line. For Saint and his players, buried in preparation, that same week passed in a blur.

It wasn’t that the squad felt time was somehow compressed. It simply disappeared, the way it always does when every waking hour is consumed by one single, all-consuming focus.

When attention narrows down entirely onto one goal, the ordinary passage of time stops registering the way it normally does, which is exactly why, for this Villa squad, the week felt like it evaporated.

"They’re a genuinely strong side, and their manager’s excellent... no argument from me there." Facing the press ahead of the match, Saint knew perfectly well what narrative had been building all week, and he leaned straight into it rather than fight it.

Their opponents this round were managed by a genuine former England international, a man with real Premier League pedigree from his playing days, now building a coaching reputation of his own down in the Championship.

Before this fixture against a manager with genuine Three Lions history, Saint had faced something similar the previous round too... a manager who’d once represented his country at the very highest level, now standing on the opposite touchline in League football.

Ahead of kickoff, Saint made a point of acknowledging both men’s playing pedigree directly, publicly praising the achievements neither he nor plenty of pundits could match themselves. It made for good copy, and it cost him nothing.

With Saint offering nothing but genuine compliments, the opposing manager had little room to respond with anything but the same, English football’s own unwritten code of pre-match civility didn’t leave much space for anything else.

The pre-match press conference, robbed of any real controversy, turned into something almost dull, which didn’t mean the match itself would follow suit. Spurred on by a week of local press building them up as potential giant-killers, that club’s players walked into this fixture wanting nothing more than to make Villa look foolish.

Villa, for their part, had poured an entire week into preparing for exactly this kind of test. Saint himself had barely left the training complex the whole week; eating, sleeping, and working out of the same building.

"I don’t need to say much else... I’ve watched every one of you grind through this week, and I know exactly what you’ve put in. Now go out there, win this match, and take us one step closer to the Premier League." Whatever needed saying had already been said, long before kickoff. For Villa now, only the result itself remained.