The Saint Maddox Odyssey

With the captaincy settled, the squad numbers came next. Most of the shirts were free after the summer clear-out, and with the Premier League allowing anything from 1 to 99, nobody was short of choice.

Number 1 still belonged to last season’s first-choice keeper, Joe Hartley, and Vacek, wisely, didn’t try to prise it off him. He took 33 instead.

The back line was where it got interesting. Teale and Reyes both held back when it came to the number 4, each politely waving the other forward, and Saint couldn’t help wondering what Chelsea and Barcelona supporters would make of the scene. In the end Teale settled on 20, and Reyes became Villa’s number 4. Lindley took 3, Rami 6, Barzley 15 and Gamble 24.

The full-backs sorted themselves out quickly: Alencar 13, Colley 77, Faraday 14 and Crichton 2.

In midfield, Reyes already had his number, Conlan picked 5, Rocher 7, Lavelle 28, Jurek 8, Monroe 18, Finch 17 and Carver 16.

Up front, with Okoro gone to Norwich, Tomlin took the 9 shirt, Salerno 22 and Pryce 25. Counting the third-choice goalkeeper, the first team now stood at 24 players.

By Premier League standards it was a seriously well-balanced squad, with at least two bodies for every position and no obvious weak link.

With the numbers agreed, Saint led the new arrivals to the club’s media room for the unveiling. The turnout floored most of the new signings. Teale, Reyes and Pryce were used to big-club treatment, but this was Aston Villa, a side only just promoted from the Championship.

”See? Told you I wouldn’t be a stranger. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on,” Saint said, glancing around the room at a good number of familiar faces.

To anyone else it might have sounded friendly. Most of the journalists present knew Saint well enough by now to hear the needle underneath it.

They came anyway, because each of them had a private agenda. They’d never found a way into Saint himself, so the plan was to look for cracks in the new signings instead.

Teale, Reyes and Pryce were great names, but past their peak, and the press could always find an angle on that. As for the young lads, well, wasn’t it far too easy to pick on a squad full of kids?

What the reporters seemed to have forgotten was how Saint had behaved on his very first day in the job. Or perhaps they simply assumed he wouldn’t dare repeat it, now that Villa were a Premier League club and he had a reputation to protect.

They had overestimated him, or rather, misjudged him. As far as Saint was concerned, results were the only thing that mattered, and everything else was noise.

Making his enemies uncomfortable was the surest way to keep himself comfortable. And who were his enemies? The people sitting right there in front of him.

So, after the club’s media officer had introduced the players one by one in front of what had to be nearly a hundred journalists, Saint turned on his heel and walked out, and this time he took every player with him.

”Right, lads. Ready for the storm?” Once they were clear of the cameras, the smile Saint had worn a moment earlier vanished.

”Know what I did on my first day in charge here?” He looked over at the new signings.

”Faced the whole of the English press, introduced myself, then walked off. From that moment, I had enemies outside these walls, and not the polite kind.”

”Why? Plenty of you probably can’t work it out.” The players stayed fixed on their manager, waiting for him to explain.

”Because even if I’d played nice, they’d never have let me alone. I was young for the job, barely any time in management, never led a side through a league season before, nothing on my record to point to. And I’d never played the game at any level that mattered. Wasn’t exactly short of targets.”

”Now you see it? There was too much for them to aim at. And you’re in the same position. You’ve got plenty of weak spots they can attack, and the animals out there won’t pass up the chance. So I took you out of the room instead.”

”Of course, some of you are thinking, fine, today we dodged it, but what about next time?” Saint looked around at the group.

”Next time? There won’t be one. I’m not giving them an opening, same as last season. They tried to bite me, tried to bring me down, and in the end they got nothing, because I didn’t hand them anything.”

It wasn’t bragging. He’d genuinely done it. Villa had dragged themselves from the bottom half of the table into the Premier League, and in the process Saint had left most of the English press speechless. Calling it a miracle wasn’t much of an exaggeration, any more than calling his rise to the job itself a piece of magic.

”I did my part. Now it’s yours,” Saint said, looking straight at them.

”I’m not trying to pile pressure on you. Every one of you is here because I chose you. Maybe you didn’t realise it, but each of you is my pick.” And with that, he dropped another bomb on them.

”I’m telling you all this for a reason. The second you signed for Villa, you put yourselves on the opposite side from the English press. That’s just how it is.”

”Pressure doesn’t scare me. To me, it’s fuel. And here’s what I’d say to you. If you don’t want to be a laughing stock, if you don’t want to become the example the papers hold up of everything wrong with a promoted side, there’s only one way to do it.”

”Don’t give them the chance.”

Saint turned and walked off, the whole squad’s eyes following him.

”Oh, nearly forgot something quite important,” he said, stopping a few paces on.

”We’ve just come up. The big priority this season is to stay up.” The line instantly punctured the heavy, serious mood, and a couple of the lads actually laughed.

Then he was off again, not looking back this time, and the players were left staring at one another, bemused.

The veterans, though, didn’t buy it for a second. Teale, Reyes and Pryce traded long looks, each privately wondering what their young manager was really aiming for.