Ross Barkley is excited to see what the new-look Aston Villa can achieve this season and beyond

Ross Barkley is confident Aston Villa can enjoy further success under Unai Emery after adding “unbelievable talent” to their squad, with the midfielder excited by the fresh dynamic brought by their summer recruits.

Villa lost more than half of the starting XI that faced SC Freiburg in the Europa League final in May and made a poor start to the season, losing three of their first four league matches.

However, after claiming four wins in their last six games across all competitions and scoring at least three goals in each of those victories, Villa appear to be turning a corner. Their 6-0 thrashing of Fenerbahce on Wednesday night marked the club’s biggest-ever victory in major European competition.

Barkley, who turns 33 in December, scored twice against the Turkish giants after being brought in to play alongside Boubacar Kamara. His experience is more valuable than ever following Villa’s loss of several leaders over the summer and he is no stranger to change, having experienced transitions in a number of dressing rooms throughout his career.

“I am used to it. I have played for a long time now, so I am used to change. It made no difference to me but obviously for the team you have to gel together,” Barkley said.

“The way to do that is on the training pitch with the manager, the repetition of the way we play and the younger lads learning what we want. They gave that today, the younger lads who came into the team and the more senior players. It’s exciting.

“They’re top quality players. I could see that from day one when I first trained with them. Ibrahim (Mbaye) can go both ways, get his shots off, can assist. He's got a great weighted pass. That's why the club signed him. He's only 18, but he's got so much ability.

“And Johan (Manzambi) is a top player, he's going to be unbelievable. He's got a real good sense of his positioning, gets great shots off. He's a great addition to the squad. He's a great personality as well. He's confident.

“The same Nicolas (Jackson) as well - he's confident, a great lad, he's funny and brought a lot to the team already, scoring important goals, and he's growing. It's great. We've got our manager, and you know what Unai is like. He's unbelievable, one of the best in the world, and the team's achieved a lot under him. I believe that the team will carry on to do so, even though we've lost some top players.

“We've brought in some young, unbelievable talent. If you start slow, you are still building with new players. There were 10 new additions. We have a new ‘keeper and he is learning the way too. Sometimes it will be a bit of a slow process but it will be worth it in the end.

“In the second half of the season, last year we went on a great run and built that momentum. Hopefully we can do that now. It is just the process. We started slow but we can build as we are doing now, grow and I believe we will be high up the table toward the last third of the season.”

Despite losing just one of their last seven matches in all competitions, Villa have only been victorious in one their first six league matches and are yet to claim their first home league victory after failing to hold on to a lead against Brentford last weekend.

Emery’s team had struggled to exert control for any sustained period in their previous home matches, but Barkley’s return to the starting XI contributed to a much-improved performance against Fenerbahce.

“When it’s our midfielders like Bouba (Kamara), Joao (Gomes), me, Gortezka, that is the way we play, to bring some calm to the team with our passing and then spring into action and go a bit chaotic with our forwards, get our shots off and try and dribble,” Barkley explained.

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“It has been a little bit chaotic recently, so it is just about managing the ball and knowing when to take your men on build up and keep the ball high up the pitch, which we are working on. It’s a process and the players are still adapting. We are still going and we are getting results now and growing.

“It was always going to come, whether we started slow or started brilliantly. The performances will come because of the way we play. We have unbelievable players and you saw it today, that will happen at times this season.

“We have players all over the pitch who are fast, direct and can make something out of nothing with the likes of Alysson, Mbaye, Manzambi, Nicolas, (Alejandro) Garnacho. We have players who can go one-on-one and create things.

“At times it might look a bit chaotic because they are direct. That is how they are. It is about managing that. Maybe it is a bit of a different Villa to the last few years with new players and new things. That brings excitement as well.”

He added: “We have a lot of unpredictable players now. Sometimes that will happen. We might make a few and then just go bang, bang, bang and that chance is created. It is just about managing the ball and being in good positions with our experienced players, helping the younger lads and guiding them to be in the best position and then when they are in the final third.

“It is like how I was spoken to when I was young by the senior players. It is just about managing that and then in the final third, do your magic. The Premier League is intense, physical and sometimes it takes a bit of adapting for new additions from foreign leagues. But it is looking good.”