A new year is upon us and it’s bound to be a spectacular one for Aston Villa supporters one way or another, so you’ll be looking for the top Villa news sources to follow in 2026.
Villa supporters are blessed when it comes to club news reporting and high-quality content online. Trust me; it’s not the same for every club. Some fans have to put up with total garbage from soup to nuts.
If you’re on the lookout for new sources for a new year that’s full to the brim with Premier League potential and European football hopes, the usual mainstream sources might leave you feeling short-changed. With that in mind, I have some recommendations.
I don’t watch Villa matches from the press box but I do cover a number of EFL games. The different experience that comes with it is invaluable – from observing the game with that extra step removed from fans (you’re at work, basically) to being able to attend and participate in press conferences with managers.
There are transfer news sources of varying degrees of virtue and reliability. Follow David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano if you must. But the journalists who cover Villa as their regular gig are the ones you really need to listen to.
In our case, that’s John Townley at the Birmingham Mail and Jacob Tanswell of The Athletic. I’ve lived through their predecessors, both good and bad, and I’m familiar with their equivalents overseeing other clubs, so when I say we’re lucky to have these two in our corner you can take that to the bank.
Full disclosure: I’m the owner of the Aston Villa Review podcast and Substack. I do recommend it though. We have a weekly podcast hosted by me and Steven Green, which returned in 2025 after an eight-year hiatus having originally begun in 2012.
The podcast is free and will remain so forever. There’s just one a week and it’s usually between 35 and 50 minutes in length, so it’s a slightly different offering from some of the others and might suit your routine a bit better.
We also provide wraparound match coverage comprising a full preview, player ratings and match conclusions for every first team Villa fixture. There are other features along the way too.
Aston Villa Review has some free articles but the full experience is available for subscribers for £4 per month and I like to think it offers good value. Either way, there are plans afoot to add even more in the new year.
What we can guarantee is that you’ll never see an advert or be asked to watch a video.
If video and tactics float your boat, I heartily recommend subscribing to Adam Clery’s Independent YouTube channel.
It’s not Villa-focused but Adam – a top man and quality tea-maker – has explored Villa under Unai Emery in depth twice this season and he’s very, very good at what he does.
There’s a bunch of genius tactical and statistical insight on the channel and it’s all presented in an entertaining and accessible way. It’s usually very topical stuff but recent analyses include Leicester City’s Premier League win and England‘s system in the 1966 World Cup final.
Essential viewing, not least while Villa are making weird things happen to numbers.
Statto does a bunch more than just social media so you should dive in and decide for yourself, but this recommendation is a specific one.
If you’re in the market for an account to follow that delivers verified, easily digestible and out-of-the-box facts and statistics with regularity, Aston Villa Statto is the best use of that click on the follow button.
This won’t be new to anyone but Dan Rolinson’s work on Claret & Blue is exceptional. I can’t keep up but when I listen in, it’s always terrific. It’s an essential podcast to subscribe to even if you can’t watch or listen to everything.
John Townley is a regular along with Mat Kendrick and there are other regular guests too, so there’s a varied set of voices – literally and figuratively – and things are always kept pretty fresh.
My aim with this site and Aston Villa Review is to provide grown-up content for Villa fans that originates in the real world and doesn’t get drawn into the nonsense noise and knee-jerk panic of social media.
Dan and his comrades achieve that very well, and John’s input as a reporter close to the club is always going to make C&B a valuable listen.
A couple of hundred weekly words about Villa from a neutral who lives and breathes football and is the best in the business when it comes to national media football writing?
That’ll be Daniel Storey’s newsletter from The i Paper. It’s for subscribers only but the i has other good sports writers and some decent puzzles behind the paywall too. Dan’s work is worth the few quid a year anyway but make sure to tell him I sent you.
I don’t know how or why Ben Dinnery does it, but I’m glad he does. Premier Injuries serves up all the injury and absence news you could possibly want – arguably even more than that.
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