Chapter 79: One Concession

"Is this Villa side, unbeaten for the better part of three months, actually about to lose the biggest match of their season?" Curtis’s voice carried genuine worry.

One minute left before the break, and the scoreline had changed. No longer 0-1.

0-2. Yes... 0-2. Villa now trailed by two, not one.

The referee had become as much a talking point as either team. The first goal’s foul had gone unnoticed by Boyle entirely. The second had come down to the linesman, Steve Rossett.

And this time it wasn’t even a foul in question, it was offside, plain as day. At the exact moment the pass was played, Todd had been standing clearly beyond Villa’s last defender. Rossett’s flag never went up.

The referee’s whistle confirmed the goal stood, and chaos erupted on Villa’s touchline. Saint had to be physically held back by his own staff while they went storming toward the fourth official themselves.

"Looks like Villa’s manager has given up the fight entirely," one pundit remarked, not without a hint of mockery.

Was that actually true, though? Saint wasn’t the type to simply fold. A man doesn’t become the youngest permanent manager in the modern English game and drag a side from the edge of relegation to the brink of the Premier League by giving up when things turn.

Anyone who looked closely into Saint’s eyes in that moment would have seen something else entirely; fury, yes, but underneath it, a fire that showed no sign of going out.

On the pitch, Villa closed out the half with one last effort, Whitfield’s long-range strike from the edge of the box whistling just over Wigan’s crossbar.

The moment Whitfield’s effort sailed wide, Saint turned and walked straight back toward the tunnel. As the focal point of every camera in the stadium, that decision didn’t go unnoticed.

"Looks like Villa’s manager is thoroughly unimpressed with that first-half performance."

On the pitch, Villa’s players clocked Saint’s early exit almost immediately too. Fortunately, the referee’s whistle for half-time arrived seconds later, giving them something else to focus on.

"Is boss properly furious right now?" Okoro asked, glancing toward Rocher as they walked in.

Every player at the club knew exactly how much Saint valued Rocher, and Rocher, in turn, had always treated Saint as something close to a mentor, not quite family, but close enough that the age gap between them barely registered.

For all Saint’s youth, there was a steadiness to him that Rocher had trusted completely since the day he was first brought to England. Every training plan, every piece of guidance, Rocher had followed it without question.

Rocher didn’t answer Okoro’s question out loud, but his expression said enough on its own. With a flicker of real nerves, Villa’s players filed quietly down the tunnel and into the dressing room.

"Heads up." The moment the players heard Saint’s voice, its weight carried enough authority that every head in the room lifted instinctively.

"Both goals conceded in that first half were entirely down to the officials. Neither of you needs to carry a shred of blame for either of them." Not strictly the whole truth, but not far off it either, and exactly the framing this group needed to hear.

"Going behind isn’t the end of the world. Comebacks happen in this sport constantly, we’ve done it ourselves this very season." Saint let that land before continuing.

Trailing wasn’t fatal, and hearing it said plainly started visibly lifting the mood in the room.

"You want to know what’s actually dangerous in football? Losing belief. Losing the hunger to win. So tell me, have any of you lost belief in yourselves? Has anyone in this room stopped wanting this?"

"NO."

"Good. Now let’s talk about the second half."

"Callum." Saint’s eyes locked onto Loach.

"You’re pushing higher for the second half." As Saint said it, he moved Loach’s marker on the tactics board, and every other piece shifted around him in turn.

"We’re switching to a back three, three at the back with you pushed forward into it." Saint continued once the board was set.

"Wigan’s centre-backs aren’t tall, and their aerial defending is genuinely poor. Callum, you’re the focal point of our second-half attack. Get in that box and stay there."

"Yes, boss." Loach could barely contain the excitement on his face hearing it.

Watching that reaction, Saint found himself thinking, not for the first time, that whoever had originally trained Loach purely as a defender had probably missed something, put him up front from the start, and he might genuinely have been something else entirely.

"Antoine, Yannick." Saint turned to Rocher and Lavelle next.

"Get the ball wide, and the second you see the chance, cross it. Every single one goes toward Callum’s head."

"Yes, boss." Nobody in that dressing room questioned Saint. Nobody ever had, not really, not since the very earliest weeks of his tenure.

Over the following few minutes, Saint went through the rest of the starting eleven individually, laying out exactly what he wanted from each of them.

"Lads... I’ve always believed you’re the best group in this division. The only reason this squad underperformed for half a season before I arrived is that you’d never had a manager willing to actually get the best out of you." Saint didn’t hold back taking one more shot at Ventham on the way past.

Ventham’s name had become something of a running joke in the national press ever since his dismissal; the target of a steady stream of criticism that had, by all accounts, eventually driven him to leave the country entirely, and he hadn’t been seen back in English football since.

"So don’t dwell on the scoreline. Don’t second-guess yourselves. Go out there, play the way you’re actually capable of playing, and this match still ends with us winning it."

Right as Saint finished, a staff member knocked on the door, the fifteen-minute break had already slipped by without anyone in that room noticing.

Across the corridor, Wigan’s players had already made their way out into the tunnel, waiting. Spotting Villa emerging behind them, more than one Wigan player wore a visibly satisfied smirk.

"Boss... Norwich haven’t scored yet in their first half either." Since Norwich and Brighton were playing each other directly, the outcome of that match had no real bearing on Villa’s own promotion picture, whoever won, only one of them could actually finish above the other regardless.

"Oh... and Derby’s actually gone behind in their own match. Looks like this title race might be over sooner than anyone expected." Fair point, and genuinely relevant this time.

Though Cadman’s tone, deliberately casual as it sounded, was pitched loud enough that it clearly reached Wigan’s players walking just ahead of them; and his delivery, if anything, was a touch too convincing to be entirely accidental.

"You absolute snake." One of Wigan’s players, only just out of the dressing room himself, spun round with a face like thunder.

Back in Villa’s own dressing room, Cadman had spent part of the break deliberately feeding false information to keep the group focused entirely on their own match, and it was working precisely as intended, just not on the side he’d meant it for.

Wigan’s most direct relegation rival was playing a mid-table side with nothing at stake, and Cadman’s little aside had planted the idea that their rival was cruising to an easy win. It landed instantly; a mid-table side, in most minds, should always struggle against a team fighting for its life, which made the lie entirely believable.

The whole Wigan squad turned as one to stare at Cadman, and that single moment did more damage to their collective composure than anything said in their own dressing room could have repaired.