TOM Heaton believes he is reaching his peak as a goalkeeper and insists there it more to come both from him and Burnley.

The Clarets captain signed a new four-year deal this pre-season, which will keep him at Turf Moor until he is 34.

He has started 130 successive league games since his arrival at Burnley, a three-season spell that has taken in two promotions to the Premier League.

And as Heaton prepares to captain his side into the top flight this term he believes he is now as good as he’s ever been between the posts.

“As I stand here now I think I’m the best I have ever been,” said the 30-year-old.

“I look at everything to try and get better all the time. I work with Billy (Mercer, Burnley goalkeeping coach), we have a fantastic working relationship, he challenges me all the time, and with the manager, the staff and the other goalkeepers.

“I’m always looking at things to improve on, that hasn’t changed, and to be honest I'm hungrier than ever, you get a taste of it and you just want more.”

Heaton has made almost as many league starts in his three seasons at Turf Moor as he did in eight years before that move.

Burnley may have been his ninth club in English football, including loan spells, but the former Manchester United youngster has now found a home and he has noticed an improvement in his game that has come from a regular first-team football.

"I think I've got better to be honest,” he said of his spell in East Lancashire.

“I think I've tried to take things on, playing consistently helped at the start, having not done that before, you learn new things in the Premier League, and Bill having his ideas,..there's been an awful lot of factors, and it's important you keep pushing the boundaries.

"If you rest on what you've done, you'll go backwards.

"I feel great at the minute, having turned 30, I'm in a good place and I'll keep working hard.”

When Heaton arrived at the club Burnley were tipped for another season of struggle in the Championship.

Instead they stormed to automatic promotion, and despite relegation from the Premier League a year later the Clarets secured an immediate return with Heaton lifting the Championship title in May,

Asked if he could have envisaged the last three years turning out how they have when he signed, he said: "It would have been difficult to come out with that three years ago, but I set high goals and ambitions, and most of the people here are the same.

"You might have looked at me funny if I'd have come out and said it, but it's been a driving ambition, you set the bar high and it gets you out of bed and keeps you working hard every day.

"It's nice to have that in the bag now for me and the club, and there's far more to come, far more we want to achieve and hopefully we can do that.”