COOK PUTS TOP EIGHT ON MENU

BOURNEMOUTH skipper Steve Cook has challenged the Cherries to a top-eight finish — and their best-ever season in the Premier League.

Cook and his pals beat Southampton 3-1 on Friday to win ‘El Classicoast’ and record their first away win against the Saints.

The victory — thanks to goals from Nathan Ake, Harry Wilson and Callum Wilson, with James WardProwse getting one back from the penalty spot — lifted them to third overnight on Friday.

Now Cook wants Bournemouth to turn their start into a season-long bid to better their previousbest finish of ninth.

He said: “It’d be brilliant to go better than ninth and that’s what we’re targeting. The league every year is improving, a lot of money has been spent by the teams in the middle, so it’s really hard to keep up.

“All we can keep doing is trying to improve.

“Friday showed two different sides of the Bournemouth team.

“In the second half we really stuck in there and ground out a result.

“The first half we were terrific and they couldn’t handle us, so if we can turn that performance into 90 minutes then we’ll be really dangerous.”

Bournemouth rarely get a mention as the team which could finish best of the rest.

Cook added: “It’s fine that we don’t get talked about, that’s what we enjoy. We’re always going to be a team which goes under the radar and that’s perfect.

“We had a good start last year but didn’t back it up, so this year hopefully we can go one better and finish as high as possible.

“We’re sitting nicely with 10 points after six games and the most positive thing is we have a lot more to give.”

Ake said: “You always want to do better than you’ve done before and if you have a great start like this you have to keep building it.

“We don’t really look at what people on the outside are saying, we focus on ourselves.

“We know what we can achieve, we just have to make sure we look at what we do game by game.”