STEVE Cook hailed Saturday’s success at Villa Park as “one of my favourite wins” as Cherries picked up their first victory of the campaign.

Having been held at home by Sheffield United after a late Billy Sharp goal on the opening day, Cherries raced into a 2-0 lead against Aston Villa through Joshua King and Harry Wilson strikes.

Douglas Luiz pulled one back for the hosts, but Cherries saw off the fightback to clinch the 2-1 success.

Discussing the win at Villa Park, Cook told the Daily Echo: “Villa obviously scored a fantastic goal, but I think we managed the game quite well after that and definitely learned a few lessons from last week (against Sheffield United).

“It was a huge result that’s put us in a nice position.

“I think the game got built up for their fans. I think they expected a big performance because it was the first (home) game back in the Premier League. We knew that.

“The team talk was to try and nullify that and scoring two early goals is obviously the best way to do that.

“We were aware of what these fans can be like. They’re very passionate and they can drive their team on so we saw that and that was a big task for us, but I felt we did that well.”

Cook and centre-back partner Nathan Ake were called into numerous late clearances with goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale also on hand to punch clear the danger in the final 20 minutes.

And the stand-in skipper was pleased with the way Cherries defended.

Cook said: “We worked all week on defending crosses, defending our box. I think we did that well. It took an unbelievable goal to get them back in the game.

“I think Saturday is one of my favourite wins, because we’ve ground it out and it was a very tough day."

He added: “We had to defend for long periods of the game. It was very end-to-end.

“It’s not like us to shut up shop and put everyone back and we were committing a lot of players still. Everyone to a man put in a great shift and we can enjoy this win.”