Aston Villa blogger Matthew Turvey believes the Premier League kick-off marks the real start of the club’s journey under new boss Alex McLeish – but where will it lead?

So, the season is finally upon us. With a week that has put a lot of football into perspective, Aston Villa will kick off against Fulham at Craven Cottage in London.

And now comes the time to see just exactly whether the gambles that have been made withVilla as a football club are to pay off.

There is no doubt in the minds of fans that the loss of Stewart Downing and Ashley Young will be significant.

As fans, all we can do is hope that their replacements, Charles N’Zogbia and Marc Albrighton, will be sufficient.

But my concerns do not tend to focus on the wings.  I know for certain that N’Zogbia is a talented footballer and is easily the match of either Young or Downing.

At present, my concern isn’t with the idea of whether N’Zogbia will be successful, but rather how long he will stay at the club.

Why? The reality of Aston Villa Football Club is that we have sold our best players in sequential years. Of course, the nature all football clubs involve the buying and selling of players.

No club is immune, not even the biggest clubs in the world. But he concern that most of our fans will have is two fold.

Firstly, whether Alex McLeish is really the man to take over the reigns at the club. Some will say that being relegated with Birmingham is far from the most positive sign, whilst others will suggest that Blues’ stature and finances were the real reasons they went down.

Secondly, some fans have seen recent attempts by Villa to offload players without adequate replacements as a change in ambition by Randy Lerner.

They think that failing to invest means that Randy isn’t interested, that he is wanting to take money out of the club, or that he is wanting to sell the whole package.

I, personally, don’t think this is the case. My thoughts, from a pragmatic perspective, is that Lerner is doing his best to get the clubs finances in order.

Whether we wants to attribute the bloated wage bill to Martin O’Neill overspending, to financial mismanagement by Randy Lerner, or to any mixture of the two – the fact of the matter is we are where we are.

Finances need to be trimmed and, thus, we have had to sell more players than we have bought.

As for McLeish, my attitude is a sensible and objective one. I am willing to give him a chance to prove he can be a good manager even though I, like many others, didn’t have him as my first choice to take over the club.

The board, however, must have seen something in his past at Glasgow Rangers and as manager of Scotland that illustrates a more positive view of him as a manager.

I was impressed with his signing of Arteta at Rangers, for example, and for his win percentage of 70 per cent with Scotland. All, it seems, is not as bad as some fans would lead you to believe.

However, whatever the opinion that fans have, there is only one way to find out how McLeish is going to turn out. He has to manage and, obviously, do his best to win games.

If we start winning, it will be likely that most Villa fans will forget he was a former Birmingham manager and we will move forwards. If we don’t, then it could be a tough job for McLeish.

Whatever happens though, we are about to find out how the future of Aston Villa is going to begin.

The future, as they say, is there to be written.

You can also follow Villa blogger Matthew Turvey at his own site, http://www.astonvillalife.com.