Chapter 78: Another Man in the Spotlight

Careful, Saint had told his players specifically before kickoff, watch Todd closely.

Play carried on. Villa found another chance in Wigan’s half, Delgado dropped deep to combine with Rocher.

"Lovely... Delgado with a clever backheel there."

"Rocher... cuts inside with the ball, shot... just wide!"

Wigan broke straight from the goal kick. Their centre-back, standing well over six foot four, won the header cleanly, the tallest man on the pitch by some distance.

The ball dropped to Todd’s feet. This time he didn’t attempt to go alone down the flank, instead he switched it inside, combining with a teammate through the middle.

A neat one-two carried Wigan straight past Loach, who’d pushed up to close the passing lane. Fortunately, Conlan had already tracked back to cover, because Rami alone wouldn’t have contained that run.

A clipped pass, a swap of positions with Conlan covering the gap, and Loach recovered just in time to chase it down, only for Todd to release it into the box before Loach could get there.

"Pentland! No... decisive from Villa’s keeper, out quick to smother it!"

"Wigan aren’t finished yet, long-range effort, over the bar!"

"Corner... Rami covers well, deflects it behind for a corner rather than letting it through."

"Header... Pentland’s positioning is excellent, gathers it comfortably." Wigan’s smallest player on the pitch, barely five-foot-seven, had somehow won that aerial duel against defenders considerably taller than him.

"Wigan aren’t here just to make up the numbers, Villa and Saint both need to take that seriously." Those two chances made the point plainly enough, a side fighting for its Championship survival knew exactly what kind of afternoon it needed to produce.

Villa understood that too, which was exactly why Saint had pushed his players to chase an early goal, seize control before Wigan’s fight could settle into something more dangerous.

Fortune hadn’t quite cooperated, though. Villa held roughly sixty percent of possession and had racked up considerably more shots, without finding a way through.

Dominant without a goal to show for it, that was the honest shape of Villa’s afternoon so far. Wigan, despite fewer attempts of their own, had matched Villa shot for genuine danger.

Time slipped by in that constant back-and-forth. Before long, the first half had reached its midpoint, the scoreline still blank, Villa still hunting that opener.

Twenty-seventh minute, and Villa won a corner. Loach rose at the front post and got a clean header away, only for a Wigan defender to block it directly on the goal line.

Wigan broke again straight after. Todd laid it back to his centre-back, who nodded it first time to a teammate rather than control it.

That teammate carried it down the flank before Alves cut the angle off, forcing an abrupt switch of play; a wide, sweeping ball all the way across the pitch, finding Todd on the opposite side.

"Cross... big diagonal switch there, Rami’s covering... no... Todd!"

"GOOOOOOOOAL! GOAL! Wigan take the lead! Twenty-ninth minute, and it’s Wigan who break the deadlock!"

"Todd! An absolutely powerful header, muscles his marker out of the way entirely and buries it."

"That’s a foul, surely; replay shows a clear push in the back on Rami as Todd goes up for it." Curtis, for all his loyalty to Villa, wasn’t going to manufacture bias where the footage plainly showed otherwise.

Slow motion confirmed it, a genuine shove, clean as day. Rami, understandably furious, immediately turned to the referee to make the case himself.

Boyle wasn’t having any of it. The whistle went, pointed straight back to the centre circle. Goal stands.

"Are you actually blind?" Rami’s frustration finally boiled over, his expression twisting.

Whitfield had stayed close by the whole time, but by the moment Rami actually snapped, there wasn’t enough time left to stop the words leaving his mouth.

"Yellow card! For Rami; dissent, and Boyle’s not hesitating on this one." The stadium erupted into furious jeering almost instantly.

"Boss... you need to calm down, genuinely," Cadman and Pratt were both hauling Saint back on the touchline, physically restraining him from storming toward the officials.

"I wasn’t going after the fourth official, I swear..." Saint protested, though if Cadman and Pratt hadn’t grabbed him when they did, that claim wouldn’t have held up for long.

"Aldo." Once Cadman and Pratt eased off, Saint made his way to the touchline and called Rami over while Wigan celebrated behind them.

"That goal’s on the referee, not you, don’t dwell on it." Saint’s first words to him were pure reassurance.

"But lad, do you remember what I told you before? As a centre-back, as the last line before the keeper, you cannot lose your composure, no matter what’s just happened." The criticism came right behind it.

"Boss, I know. My fault." Rami dropped his head, accepting it fully.

"Words don’t fix it. Show me with your performance instead, prove I was right to trust you with this." Saint held his gaze steady.

"But be careful now... you’re carrying a yellow card, and Wigan will absolutely target you for it the rest of this half. We’re behind, but don’t let that rattle you. This match still ends with us on top." With that final word, Rami went back to his position.

Play resumed quickly. Kickoff went, and Villa, exactly as Saint had hoped, responded with real composure despite the setback.

Wigan, meanwhile, lost some of their own discipline after taking the lead, and it showed almost immediately. Thirty-second minute, a genuine defensive error nearly cost them dearly.

A Wigan defender misjudged a cross from Lavelle entirely, inadvertently knocking it straight into Okoro’s path. Unfortunately, in a near one-on-one situation, Okoro completely fluffed the finish, blasting it well over the bar.

"Good grief... Villa simply cannot convert a single one of these chances today," Curtis said, unable to hide his frustration.

Wigan, in fairness, had defended with real discipline for most of the half. But Villa had created chance after chance without reward, while their opponents had needed just the one clean opportunity to punish them.

The match, so far, was proving the old football cliché true yet again; dominance means nothing without a goal to show for it, and it was Wigan, not Villa, who’d found the net first.