Aston Villa's Champions League return feels different – and that might not be a bad thing

There is something slightly different about Aston Villa returning to the Champions League this time around, because while the excitement of hearing that music again and watching Villa compete in the biggest club competition in Europe hasn't diminished in the slightest, I don't think there is quite the same certainty about what this team might be capable of once the competition gets underway.

When Villa last entered the Champions League, there was obviously an element of the unknown because it had been so long since the club had competed at that level, but I remember feeling quietly confident about the team Unai Emery had put together and what they might be able to achieve. That confidence was rewarded with an unbelievable league phase campaign which saw Villa finish inside the top eight, beat Bayern Munich at Villa Park and eventually make it all the way to the quarter-finals before coming incredibly close to producing a comeback against Paris Saint-Germain.

I'm not expecting Villa to finish inside the top eight this time around, and I don't think there should be any embarrassment in saying that given just how much has changed over the summer. This is a very different Aston Villa side, with important players moving on, plenty of new players coming through the door and Emery still trying to work out exactly how all of those pieces fit together, so my expectation at this stage is simply that Villa do enough to progress into the knockout phase, whether that comes through another top-eight finish or, perhaps more realistically, by finishing inside the top 24 and going through the play-off round.

Jonathan Johnson was of a similar view when he joined me on 1874 to preview the opening game against Club Brugge, and while he believes Villa should be looking to progress, he also thinks expecting a repeat of what happened last time would be setting the bar unnecessarily high.

"Personally, if I had to set an ambition for Villa, I think it's got to be finishing in that top 24," Johnson said. "I think it would be unrealistic to expect that we could replicate our top eight performance last time. It would be great if we could, but I feel like because we're such a work in progress, I think the target has to be to try and finish in those positions."

That description of Villa as a work in progress is probably the important part at the moment, because we simply don't know yet what this version of Emery's team is going to become. There has been such significant churn within the squad that even after the opening Premier League games it remains difficult to know exactly where Villa are, and while that brings some understandable uncertainty, it could also make them a slightly more awkward proposition for opponents in Europe.

Johnson made that point himself, arguing that Villa's established European pedigree under Emery is now combined with an element of unpredictability because opposition teams will have very little evidence of what this particular group looks like once everything starts to come together.

"We're now kind of an unknown quantity because of the amount of changes made," he said. "Everybody knows that Villa will have pedigree because of what we've managed to achieve, what Unai Emery has done with the club since his arrival. But equally, nobody quite knows what level to expect from us because we've got a lot of players who have really strong potential but haven't yet been able to show collectively what they can do."

I actually quite like that position for Villa, because there are effectively two different identities they can take into this Champions League campaign. There is the established European side that has now qualified for Europe in four consecutive seasons, has won a huge number of matches on the continent under Emery and has players such as John McGinn, Matty Cash and Tyrone Mings who have accumulated considerable European experience over the last few years, but there is also this new-look team which probably isn't going to be fancied in the same way it might have been 12 months ago.

Being the underdog has never particularly bothered Emery and it certainly hasn't prevented Villa from taking some enormous scalps during his time at the club. Bayern Munich were beaten at Villa Park last time around, Villa pushed PSG incredibly close over two legs in the quarter-final and there have been enough big European performances over the last few seasons for teams across the continent to know that coming up against Emery's Aston Villa is not necessarily something they will relish.

There is also something important about taking a moment to appreciate what Villa are doing rather than immediately turning Champions League qualification into another source of pressure. This is now a fourth consecutive season of European football for the club, something I have never experienced during my time supporting Villa, and after spending so many years hoping simply to see us competing on these stages again, I don't particularly want to reach the point where qualification for the Champions League is greeted with anything other than excitement.

That doesn't mean Villa shouldn't have ambition, because there is an opportunity in the opening part of the schedule to put themselves into a strong position. Club Brugge away is difficult, but it is followed by home games which Villa will believe they can win, and if Emery's side can accumulate a healthy number of points early on, suddenly the landscape changes and some of those huge nights later in the competition can be approached from a position of strength rather than necessity.

Barcelona away is sitting there on the fixture list as one of those occasions which could become one of the great European nights in Villa's history, and I'd much rather arrive at games like that able to enjoy what they represent rather than spending the next few months obsessing about whether this team can reproduce exactly what the previous one achieved.

Everything does feel slightly more unknown this time around, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Villa have an elite European manager, a squad containing plenty of players with Champions League experience and enough established figures remaining from the last few seasons to understand the standards Emery expects, while the new players have the opportunity to create their own European story rather than simply being judged against the team that came before them.

Emery himself is probably the biggest reason to believe Villa can exceed expectations again. This is a manager who took Villarreal to a Champions League semi-final when very few people would have fancied them to get anywhere near that stage of the competition, and Villa have already seen enough during his time at the club to understand that European football tends to bring the very best out of him.

So rather than trying to predict exactly where Villa will finish before a ball has been kicked, I think this is one to embrace for what it is. Aston Villa are back in the Champions League, nobody really knows yet how good this new team might become, and with Emery leading them into another European campaign, there is every reason to enjoy finding out.