Chapter 77: The Final Battle

"Premier League... lads... we are one match away from it. Beat Wigan today, and we’re in the best division in the world, playing against the best players on the planet."

"Whatever any of us actually says about it, we all want the same things out of this game; recognition, reward, and winning. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Since the day I decided to coach, I dreamed of running a football club."

"I did it. Took me barely three years, and I became the youngest permanent manager in the modern history of this country’s game. Lucky, some of you might call it. Maybe."

"But that was never the whole dream. Becoming a manager was only step one. Today, I get to chase step two, get this club into the best league on earth."

"So... are you ready to go there with me?" Saint asked it loudly, looking round the whole room.

"PROMOTION! WE’RE GOING UP!" The response came back as one voice, immediate and total.

"Good. Now get out there and beat the last thing standing in our way." With that, the dressing room door swung open.

Villa’s players filed out into the tunnel, and moments later, the away dressing room door opened too.

Something passed between the two sets of players in that tunnel, an unmistakable, electric tension.

Villa were chasing the Premier League. Wigan were fighting to stay in the Championship at all. Two entirely different stakes, colliding in the exact same ninety minutes.

Under referee Gary Boyle’s watch, both sides made their way out onto the pitch, the final battlefield of the season.

Once the referee led the players out, the two managers crossed paths on the touchline. Something sharp passed between them too, even in the handshake.

Neither bothered with pre-match theatre for the cameras, that particular battle had already played out in the press all week. A firm handshake, and both returned to their own technical areas without another word.

The referee’s whistle, and the match began. Villa reverted to their regular first-choice lineup for this one, Okoro and Delgado up front together.

Rocher and Lavelle out wide, Whitfield and Conlan through the middle, a back four of Alves, Rami, Loach, and Cuddy, with Pentland in goal.

Villa’s tactical surprise from the Coventry match had been a one-time weapon, and Saint had hoped to have this match already locked up before it mattered. Norwich and Wolves both winning their own matches had wrecked that particular calculation, though.

Worse, it wasn’t only the sides above Villa producing results, Wigan themselves had found something extra in this exact fixture, needing every ounce of it purely to survive.

Whitfield collected possession, and rather than pass immediately, Villa’s midfielder carried it forward into Wigan’s half, drawing defenders before finally releasing it.

Rocher, by now, practically the default outlet whenever Whitfield had the ball. One statistic doing the rounds in the press that week claimed Whitfield found Rocher with roughly two out of every three passes forward.

Was that odd, given how well-scouted it was? Not really, Rocher’s the kind of talent worth targeting even when the opposition knows exactly what’s coming. Knowing it and actually stopping it are two very different things.

"Foul! Red card, surely... that challenge was reckless in the extreme." Unable to win the ball cleanly, Wigan’s defender simply went through Rocher’s ankle instead.

"That’s not a tackle, that’s an assault," Saint shouted from the touchline, already storming toward the fourth official.

"Mind your language," the fourth official said, entirely unmoved.

Whether it was the early stage of the match, or simply Wigan’s precarious relegation situation earning some unspoken sympathy from the officials, the referee opted for a stern word rather than a card.

Villa’s players, furious, wanted to press the point with the referee directly. Whitfield stepped in to calm them, and Rocher, back on his feet, waved off the concern himself.

On the touchline, Cadman and Pratt had already pulled Saint back before it went any further, players risked a card for dissent, and a manager berating the fourth official risked exactly the same, potentially worse.

Villa’s fanbase adored Saint by this point, completely and without reservation. The rest of English football’s officiating establishment held no such warmth for him, a man who’d spent a season openly mocking the football media wasn’t likely to get much benefit of the doubt from anyone wearing a whistle either.

Play resumed. Villa’s first real chance came off a set piece, Whitfield’s delivery, Delgado rising above his marker to head it goalward.

The header carried little real danger, though. Wigan’s defender hadn’t quite got there first, but his positioning had done enough to strip most of the power out of the effort.

That was merely the opener, though. Villa came again almost immediately, Rocher this time, and this time nobody laid a hand on him.

"Shot... so close! Okoro’s effort clips the outside of the post and rolls behind for a goal kick!" Rocher had cut inside, drawn two defenders toward him, and slipped it through to Okoro arriving at full speed, only for the finish to narrowly miss.

Seventh minute, and Villa’s third wave arrived on schedule, this time built through the right and central combination play. Conlan and Whitfield’s overlapping runs opened space on the right, Conlan slipped a direct pass through, and Lavelle arrived to strike it first time.

"Unlucky for Villa there," Curtis said, wincing, as Lavelle’s effort cannoned back off the post.

The gap in quality was becoming impossible to ignore. But football rarely rewards the better side automatically, and Wigan struck first, ninth minute, a winger’s cross from the flank, met by their veteran striker, Alan Todd, rising above Rami to head it home.

Todd was exactly the kind of player who turns up in relegation battles across English football every season; a journeyman forward, well into his thirties, who’d spent most of his career bouncing between the second and third tiers without ever quite breaking through.

Saint hadn’t singled Todd out purely on reputation, either, he wasn’t the type to carry a detailed mental file on every journeyman forward in the English pyramid, and Todd had never been anyone’s idea of a household name.

What had actually caught Saint’s attention was Scout’s Eye itself. Watching Todd through it, Saint had spotted something odd sitting behind his rating, a question mark trailing his C-level grading, something Saint had never once seen the system display before.