Unai Emery believes Aston Villa can feel “very proud” after their 4-0 drubbing of Bournemouth at Villa Park on Sunday.

Villa cruised to victory courtesy of goals from Emiliano Buendia, Amadou Onana, Ross Barkley and Donyell Malen.

Buendia clipped a brilliant free-kick into the net to give Villa the lead 28 minutes in before Onana lasered a superb low strike to double their advantage before the break.

Evanilson saw a header crash off the bar while Antoine Semenyo missed a penalty in the second half as the Cherries floundered, with Barkley and Malen rounding off a comfortable win with goals late on.

Reflecting on the performance, Emery was full of praise for his team.

“I am very happy with the win,” the Spaniard told Sky Sports. “We are recovering from a bad start to the season.

“The effort physically was a huge effort and to manage the squad with different players with the effort we needed, we can feel proud after the game.

“This is the level of the players. We are trying to set our standards in everything, every day how we prepare the game and the quality of the players is important.”

The result also extended Villa’s superb home form. Emery’s side have now lost just one of their last 24 home Premier League matches (W14 D8) – a 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace in August.

Across the last two seasons, only Liverpool (58), Man City (54) and Arsenal (52) have won more home points in the Premier League than Villa’s 50.

Emery also hailed his players for their focus and balance throughout the performance.

“It was a fantastic goal, Emi has this quality to score set-piece goals,” he added. “How the players got the commitment before the match to focus and in the way we played is really something.

“This is how we are building and trying to recover, feeling better in the league and Europa League to get the performances we need for the future.

“Now our balance is better in the squad with the players, more focus and getting the challenges we have. The players are responding well on the field.

“It was very important how we finished today, winning and feeling good.”

Andoni Iraola, meanwhile, admitted that everything went wrong for his side as they fell to back-to-back league defeats following last week’s loss to Manchester City.

The Cherries were dealt a heavy blow early on as captain Adam Smith had to be withdrawn after just 10 minutes following a clash of heads with team-mate Tyler Adams.

“Everything has gone wrong from the beginning; we had the clash and had to make the change,” Iraola told BBC Match of the Day.

“It’s not a reason to lose. I am worried about the first half. We were poor defensively, it's a warning from the league. Two difficult away games but we have not been at our level.”

Indeed, since the start of last season, Bournemouth have kept just three clean sheets in 25 Premier League away games – the joint-fewest of any team to appear in both the 2024–25 and 2025–26 campaigns (alongside Fulham and Wolves).

“It was three goals from set plays. The first is an amazing goal from Emi Buendia,” Iraola continued. “Three goals from set pieces is too much but it’s not just this, we have to focus on the things we can do.

“We were pushing them a lot in the second half, more like us, but this first 45 minutes worry me a bit.

“We hit the post, had the penalty, clear chances to score at 2-1 and make the end of the game more nervous for them. But we didn’t take them, you have to punish them and we didn’t.”