Aston Villa are one win away from making the Carabao Cup a serious opportunity for Unai Emery

I don't think there's any great secret that the Carabao Cup probably sits towards the bottom of Unai Emery's priorities this season, particularly when Aston Villa are competing in the Champions League and trying to establish themselves towards the top end of the Premier League again, but one of the interesting things about this competition is how quickly you can find yourself in a position where winning it becomes a realistic possibility.

Villa go to Bournemouth on Wednesday night knowing that a victory would put them into the quarter-finals, and while I expect Emery to make significant changes to his team, I also wonder whether getting through this round might change the way he approaches the competition from that point onwards.

We've joked before about Emery turning up in his tracksuit for Carabao Cup games, almost as though it's an indication of where the competition sits in his thinking, and I wouldn't be particularly surprised if we see him wearing it again at Bournemouth. But I remember something similar happening during Villa's FA Cup run a couple of seasons ago, when the competition didn't necessarily appear to be a major priority initially, before the possibility of reaching Wembley started to become more realistic.

Once you're in a quarter-final, you're only a couple of games away from a final, and for a manager who has built his reputation on winning trophies, I don't think that's something Emery is going to dismiss lightly.

I also think Villa are in a slightly different position now because we've already won the Europa League under Emery, and while that was obviously a much bigger achievement than winning the Carabao Cup would be, I don't see why we shouldn't be looking to add more trophies rather than treating last season's success as something that might only happen once.

We've spent years talking about the importance of winning silverware at Aston Villa, and now that Emery has delivered a European trophy, I'd like to think we're in a position where we can start approaching other competitions with the belief that we've got a realistic chance of winning them.

Of course, there's a balance to be found because the Champions League and Premier League are going to demand an enormous amount from this squad, and I wouldn't want Emery taking unnecessary risks with important players for the sake of progressing in the League Cup. But the squad is stronger now than it has been at any previous point during his time at Villa, certainly in terms of the number of players he can call upon, and that should allow him to make changes without necessarily sacrificing our chances of winning games.

What I find particularly interesting about Wednesday is how different the situation is compared to the previous round against Coventry.

We'd just lost to Nottingham Forest, hadn't won a Premier League game and there were still plenty of questions about how quickly this new Villa side was going to come together. There had been so much change during the summer, with some extremely important players leaving and a number of new signings arriving, and while I was confident Emery would eventually get things moving in the right direction, there was clearly going to be a period where players needed to adapt.

We're now going into Bournemouth having beaten Manchester City at Villa Park, with the team playing some really good football and a number of those new signings beginning to demonstrate why Villa brought them to the club.

I thought the Manchester City performance was particularly encouraging because it showed that this new version of Villa is capable of competing with the very best teams, and while we've obviously seen Emery's sides beat City before, doing it with so many different players was another indication that the changes made during the summer are starting to work.

There's still plenty of improvement to come, which is another reason I'm encouraged by what we've seen recently, but the mood around the club is completely different to what it was when we went to Coventry.

That doesn't mean Bournemouth will be straightforward, though, because they're in excellent form themselves and I think they're a very good football team.

They've been particularly impressive defensively over recent weeks, keeping four consecutive clean sheets, and James Hill is a player who deserves a bit of recognition for the way he's performed in different positions across their back line. He's been used at right-back and centre-back, and Bournemouth have continued to look organised despite making changes to their defence.

They've also had some very impressive results, including beating AC Milan and Manchester United, and while I suspect they'll rotate just as heavily as Villa given their own fixture schedule, there's enough quality in their squad to make this a difficult evening.

I think Bournemouth deserve quite a lot of credit generally for the way they've developed over the last few years, because they're operating with a relatively small stadium and considerably fewer resources than some of the clubs they're competing against, yet they've continued to improve and establish themselves as a very good Premier League side.

The work Andoni Iraola did there was excellent, and from what we've heard about the transition to Michael Rose, there appears to have been a real effort to maintain the culture and standards that had already been established rather than simply starting everything again with a new manager.

In some respects, there are similarities with what Emery has done at Villa, because both clubs have benefited from having a clear idea of how they want to play and what they expect from the players, rather than constantly changing direction.

Villa have had some good results at Bournemouth in recent seasons, and I don't think we've lost there since that dreadful opening day under Steven Gerrard when Kieffer Moore caused us all sorts of problems, although I don't think previous meetings will have much bearing on what happens this time given how much both teams have changed.

I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being a really tight game, possibly one that goes all the way to penalties, because Bournemouth are defending well and both managers will probably be asking players who haven't necessarily started together very often to produce a performance against good opposition.

But I do think Villa should be going there believing they can win, even with substantial changes, and that's something we couldn't always say during the earlier stages of Emery's time at the club.

If we get through, suddenly we're in a quarter-final, the possibility of another Wembley appearance starts to become a little more realistic and Emery has another competition where he can potentially add to what he's already achieved at Aston Villa.

I wouldn't suggest that winning the Carabao Cup should come at the expense of our Premier League or Champions League ambitions, but I also don't think we should be dismissing the opportunity to win another trophy, particularly when we've now got a squad that should be capable of handling the demands of several competitions.

There's a long way to go before we can start talking seriously about winning it, and Bournemouth will make us work extremely hard if we're going to reach the next round, but I think Wednesday is a bigger opportunity than it might initially appear when you look at where the competition sits in Emery's priorities.