The Saint Maddox Odyssey

Training, training, and more training. For the next week, Villa’s players felt like they’d been sent to hell.

The payoff was obvious, though. Within seven days, every one of them had their conditioning numbers back where they should be, and with Iron Constitution now quietly working in the background, the squad recovered faster than any side in the league would have thought possible. Having come through the hardest week, the sessions that followed felt a lot lighter, although in truth they weren’t much easier.

While the players grafted, Saint was far from idle. He rarely appeared on the training pitch in those first days, because he had the most important job of all to finish.

Tactics. Saint had settled on his basic approach for the new season long ago, but the details still needed careful thought.

Reyes’s arrival, for one, gave Villa far more ways to attack. A man who had redefined the number four role was not simply there to tidy up the middle of the park.

The core of the plan would not change, though: both wings working together. Since the end of last season, Saint had been turning the problem over in his head. With a player like Rocher on the books, failing to build a system around the flanks would have been a waste of the Frenchman’s talent.

So this summer, he had put real effort into the full-back positions. Alencar and Colley were both attack-minded, and young Faraday, a slight, tireless left-back, might not match either of them going forward. But balance wins matches, and with Rocher ahead of him, Faraday was the better pick for a sensible mix of attack and defence.

The result was a set of flanks to frighten anyone. On the right, Alencar and Colley behind Lavelle and Jurek. On the left, Rocher, Finch, Faraday and Crichton.

Not many sides in the Premier League played with true wing play anymore, so Villa’s would be among the most dangerous in the division. Set them against the whole of Europe and they would still rank near the top.

Better still, these wide players could do more than just deliver from the byline. They could also win duels on their own. Rocher needed no introduction, having trained to Saint’s programme for over a year. As for Jurek, a glance at his career numbers showed a winger who could break a line and play a sharp pass, and his own goals were no accident either.

And Saint hadn’t even mentioned the centre forward who would sit at the end of those two wings. Right now, absolutely nobody believed Tomlin could be the best striker in the league.

After all, he’d put up numbers in the Championship that sounded impressive on paper, but the English press had been quick to discount them: twenty-four goals in twenty-three games at that level didn’t carry much weight with the big names of the top flight.

In the words of one columnist, the only thing that could stop the established goal machines of the Premier League was injury.

But Saint knew how this story went. He knew which of those names were about to start sliding down from their pedestals, and he knew that from this season, Tomlin’s star would begin to rise.

Tomlin’s role in Saint’s system was more than a simple target man. He’d be the focal point and the finisher both, and Saint intended to give him all the trust and freedom he needed.

Salerno, meanwhile, would mostly be a substitute this year. The Argentine was patient and practical, but he needed time to settle in England. Even so, being a substitute didn’t mean he’d play rarely; he would get his fair share of minutes.

The other regular belonged to Pryce. The old creator might be well on in years, but a few glimpses of his recent form had shown he was still in very good shape.

Last was Osei, the young forward who’d come in on the Sheffield United deal. His pace was a different weapon from anything else in the squad, and it would give Villa something extra to throw at tired defences.

That settled the front four, but the real test for Saint would be managing the rotation between all of them across a long season.

At the back, Teale would certainly claim one starting place, and the other had more or less been decided already: Barzley.

Given Teale’s age, rotation was a given, and the young defenders needed games to develop anyway, Lindley especially. From what Saint remembered, Lindley’s talent was in a league of its own, and although things had already diverged from how they’d originally played out, with a teacher like Teale to learn from, the boy would still have to fight for his place.

A veteran’s presence counted for a great deal in a back line like Villa’s. Barzley already had first-class centre-back ability, but his lack of experience at this level was something only time could fix.

Gamble was the same age as Barzley, but he had been overlooked at his previous club. Rami had been excellent in the Championship, but this was the Premier League now, and last season Villa’s back line had spent most of its time defending in its own half.

In the midfield, the best arrangement was simple. Reyes and Conlan would be the first choices, with Carver and Monroe behind them.

Over the same period, Saint found time to speak to several of his players individually. The first was Colley, who was now formally moved to the right-back slot.

Next was Lindley. The young defender had spent much of his time at Ipswich’s academy drifting around midfield, and Saint’s plan was to fix him at the centre of defence for good.

And then there was Monroe. If you looked at how his career had gone in the original timeline, it followed almost the exact path of one of the great deep-lying playmakers of the era. He’d started out idolising a creative number ten, then moved forward to play behind the striker, and finally been fixed in the holding role.

Unfortunately, Monroe wasn’t one of those once-in-a-generation talents. The constant change of position hadn’t turned him into a master; it had left him confused and, eventually, lost.

Now Monroe was a Villa player, and Saint had no intention of letting him walk the same road. From this summer, his place would be fixed in the holding role. And unlike in the original story, he’d get far more than most: a personal training programme designed by Saint himself, and direct guidance from a master like Reyes.

Reyes was, without any doubt, a midfield great of his generation. Had it not been for injuries, or for some of the circumstances around his career, his name might have stood alongside the very best.

Finally, the goalkeepers. Hartley had been excellent in the Championship last season, but Villa were a Premier League side now.

Saint had said he would let Hartley compete fairly with Vacek, but the contest was never really fair to begin with. Vacek’s current ability was A-level, while Hartley sat at C+.

As for the third-choice keeper, he was there to make up the numbers. Barring an accident, he’d never see the pitch.