This is part of an AVC Weekly Newsletter beta test. Comments? Criticisms? Ideas for future editions? Feel free to get in contact.

1. Sweet Release

Release clauses have become de rigueur at Aston Villa recently. Idrissa Gueye is the latest to reportedly have one. And there are clubs interested in triggering what’s said to be £7.1m. Sky Sports claimed Marseille had submitted a qualifying bid and were negotiating with the player. Twitter account Get French Football mocked that on the basis that Marseille don’t have any money and Gueye has little interest in returning to France; he wants a Premier League move.

RDM has made it clear he thinks the squad is too big, something I’m in total agreement with. The reality of trying to trim the squad is that the saleable players are probably the ones you want to hang on to and the ones you’d like to move on will not have many takers.

Given the stockpiling of central midfielders, it seems unlikely that they’ll all still be here come September. Perhaps we’ll shortly be bidding adios, or in this case au revoir, to La Roca. *Sadface*

2. Calder Loan

I mentioned Riccardo Calder being wanted by Doncaster for the season last week and touched on the benefits/obstacles in relation to youth development. This week he headed out for a half-season loan. Seems like a sensible middle ground. Who are you and what did you do with the Aston Villa I know?

3. Big Fish, Small Pond

A website called sportindustry.biz declared Villa’s kit launch the most successful across the EFL Championship. That’s based, apparently, on social shares of the fantastic teaser video featuring Vital Football’s Jonathan Fear.

The video is seriously fantastic, if Fear doesn’t get an Oscar nod we riot, but if you’ve been under a rock:

…but to adapt an old adage; social shares are vanity, profit is vanity. Have we actually shifted more kit than the likes of Newcastle? Who knows, but Dr. X apparently claimed on his Weibo account that sales were massively up on last year. Seems like a low bar.

4. Dr. X Gets Twitter

Cut out the middleman, no more need for screengrabs of Dr. X Weibo posts run through Google Translate, now you can follow the owner himself on Twitter. Totally verified and legit.

You can learn how David Cameron is “one of our great Villans” and spend time conflicted by his correct spelling of Villan, but in this case completely incorrect spelling. Because he’s definitely writing this stuff himself. Definitely.

5. How Much?

Sheffield Wednesday are charging Villa Fans £42 for the season opener at Hillsborough. It’s a class A game, they say, and that means there’s a high demand for tickets. That will likely be the case for Villa all around the league. Higher demand = higher prices, that’s how supply and demand works. Especially when there’s a very limited supply, as is the case with tickets for away fans.

Twenty’s plenty. Thirty’s dirty. Forty’s naughty. Fifty’s shifty. Sixty’s… no, i’ve run out.

Look, I agree, twenty quid seems a fair amount for an away ticket. The problem is people keep paying more. You’re going to have to paint a lot of bedsheets to get the folk in charge of maximising ticket revenue to ignore that.

We might argue that lower prices will mean more fans which will mean a better atmosphere which means yada yada yada. But the people who sell tickets and have to answer to their bosses based on spreadsheets know that 30,000 x £45 is greater than 40,000 x £30, and you can’t pay anyone’s wages with atmosphere.

Ultimately, we vote with our wallets. If twenty is plenty, stop paying more.

6. Two games, one day

A lot of people saw two preseason games apparently scheduled for July 16th and assumed it was a typo because, let’s be honest, that’s so Villa. But no, it was a cunning plan to play two games in a day with two mostly different teams. So on July 16th we took on Telford and Worcester.

Telford 1 Aston Villa 2

Starting XI: Gollini, Suliman, Elphick, Baker, Cissokho, Gana, Westwood, Ayew, Sinclair, Gestede, Green.
Subs: Johannson, Mason, McKirdy, Hepburn-Murphy, Cowans.

Telford opened the scoring just three minutes in. Jordan Ayew cancelled the home side’s lead with nine minutes remaining and Aly Cissokho nodded in the winner with just a minute of the 90 remaining.

Worcester 1 Aston Villa 5

Starting XI: Bunn, Hutton, Toner, Okore, Bennett, Gardner, Tshibola, Veretout, Grealish, Agbonlahor, Kozak.
Subs: Johansson, Lescott, Petrov, Gil, McKirdy, Hepburn-Murphy, Davis.

Once again the visitors fell behind, Worcester putting a seventh minute free kick away. The lead lasted four minutes before Jack Grealish restored the status quo. Kozak pushed Villa ahead in the 27th minute, heading home Hutton’s cross.

HT Changes: Lescott for Okore, Petrov for Tshibola, Gil for Veretout, Hepburn-Murphy for Kozak.

Hepburn-Murphy made it 3-1 six minutes into the second half. Keinan Davis replaced Agbonlahor in the 68th minute and Mark Bunn made way for Viktor Johansson in the 77th. Davis added the fourth with six minutes left on the clock and made it a brace with two minutes remaining.

7. Next Great Hope

Rushian Hepburn-Murphy came on as a late substitute against Telford and apparently made an immediate impression, helping to win the game. He later came on against Worcester and scored. RHM, if I might call him that, is therefore the next great hope. Good luck with that, friend.

8. Upcoming games

Wednesday July 20th: Bristol Rovers (A)
Saturday July 23rd: FC Nantes (A)