JACK Stacey believes Cherries have shown “we mean business” by their impressive start to life in the Championship.

Fresh from relegation from the Premier League, Jason Tindall’s men are unbeaten in the second tier, currently sitting third with three wins and a draw from their four matches, including Friday night’s 3-1 success against Coventry City.

Cherries’ points tally of 10 is the first time the club have hit double figures at this stage since the 1998-99 campaign under Mel Machin, which was coincidentally Tindall’s first season as a player at the club.

Asked if Cherries have put down a marker with their start to the season, former Luton Town ace Stacey told the Daily Echo: “It’s obviously really early days but we know we’ve seen in the past teams come down and struggle to adapt to the level.

“But I think the main thing is we have a group of lads that all want to be here and all want to get back to the Premier League so everyone is heading in the right direction and hopefully we can continue this form.

“I spoke to a few of my friends at Luton and they said from our starting team for the first few games, they said it looks like a Premier League team.

“Hopefully teams were watching on Friday and they know that we mean business and we’re looking to go back up.”

Stacey has been deployed in a more advanced wing-back role this season with Cherries changing formation.

The switch paid off immediately with the 24-year-old netting his first competitive goal for the club on the opening day against Blackburn Rovers and he has impressed in the side since.

Asked if he can focus more on the attacking side of his game in his new role, Stacey insisted: “Against some teams I don’t think Jase would be too happy if I didn’t get back!

“I’m really enjoying playing in the wing-back role and if you look at our results and how we’ve played, I think it’s suiting a lot of the team. So hopefully it will continue.”

Friday’s win over Coventry also saw marauding centre-back Chris Mepham heavily involved in the attacks, often overlapping Stacey down the right flank, a tactic not dissimilar to that adopted so successfully by Sheffield United.

“We always get onto him and say he looks like Chris Basham, so on Friday he played like him as well,” joked Stacey.

Reflecting on the win over Coventry, the club’s final game for two weeks due to the international break, Stacey added: “We said before the game, we have a belief we can beat anyone in this division when we’re at our best.

“We knew we had to start fast and to be fair to them they came back into it in the second part of the first half.

“Again at half-time we said the same things, we believed that if we play our way then we can beat any team.

“We went out and scored two goals pretty quickly after the break and I think after that the game was over.”