LINCHPIN Steve Cook insisted his partnership with Tommy Elphick could further flourish and warned Diego Costa and Wayne Rooney: We are gunning for you.

The 24-year-old centre-half and skipper Elphick started every Championship game in 2014-15, helping Cherries secure 19 league clean sheets, including four in the last five games.

And Cook, signed for a bargain fee of around £150,000 from Brighton four years ago, already has his sights set on shutting down the Premier League’s most exciting talents.

He told the Daily Echo: “I can’t speak highly enough of Tommy. He’s an outstanding captain and person and I hope we have a great season next year. It’s a step up that we can’t wait for and without doubt we can perform at that level.

“We’re both good enough and we’ve got a great partnership, so why not? We want to be seeing off the likes of Diego Costa and Wayne Rooney and we’re buzzing for it.

“This season has been very pleasing for us. We’ve worked really hard together, we’re very good friends and we take that onto the pitch together.

“I think that goes for the whole of the squad. We are an outstanding team, which we showed in the first half against Charlton. The partnerships all over the pitch were perfect.”

Cook had been part of the Cherries side that had missed out on the League One title on the final day of the 2012-13 season in the most dramatic of circumstances.

The Dorset outfit had been held to a 0-0 draw at Tranmere, allowing Doncaster to top the standings by a single point following their 1-0 triumph at Brentford.

A stoppage-time strike by James Coppinger sealed the deal, seconds after the Bees’ Marcello Trotta had crashed a penalty against the bar at the other end.

And Cook was thrilled to be on the right end of a similar circumstance this time round after Watford slipped up to hand the title to Cherries.

He added: “It takes me back to League One when we had the title nicked off us and now we’re on the other side of it, so I’m delighted.

“It’s been amazing – the best experience ever. I can’t put it into words and after we had done it, I couldn’t stop touching the medal.”

All but two of the starting XI that had featured in the final-day stalemate with Tranmere were involved in Cherries’ 3-0 win at Charlton.

The only two players not to be a part of the squad were Welsh international Shaun MacDonald and striker Lewis Grabban, now at Norwich.