TOM Heaton insists the Burnley squad never felt they were going to be in a relegation battle this season.

The Clarets skipper expressed his pride at the way the dressing room had stuck together during the campaign and proven the pundits wrong by securing back-to-back Premier League seasons.

Burnley were only in the bottom three, for the first seven days of the season, and since the New Year have always been more than five points clear of the drop.

Sean Dyche’s side had been favourites for relegation this season but Heaton felt they had a better chance than two years ago and said the side always felt they had enough to stay up.

“It’s the way we’ve gone about it,” Heaton said of the Clarets’ comfortable top flight survival.

“We’ve done it how we do it, we’ve stuck together, we’ve learnt, evolved through the season, the aim was always to stay in this season and we’ve done it.

“We’ve done it against the odds. The wider expectation was that we were probably going to be struggling all year but we knew internally that wasn’t going to be the case.

“We believe in what we do and we stuck to that. We’ve come out with what we consider to be a really successful year.”

Heaton said the Clarets hadn’t paid too much attention to the league table during the season, but of staying out of the bottom since August he added: “It’s a good feat. We try not to look at too much of those things as a distraction but it’s certainly a good marker for how we’ve gone about it.”

It’s been another season to remember as captain for Heaton, he took the armband two years when Jason Shackell departed for Derby County.

Since his elevation to skipper Heaton has tasted plenty of success, lifting the Championship title a year ago and now helping Burnley to survival in the top flight for the first time in 42 years.

But he was quick to praise the collective effort at Turf Moor this year.

“It is a very proud moment. Another one,” the 31-year-old England stopper said.

“There was last season with the armband to go as champions which was great and to add survival in the Premier League this year is outstanding. I think we did better than just surviving.

“I’m very proud, really delighted to do it and it gives us that hunger for more of it next year.”

Heaton will find out on Thursday whether he has retained his place in the England squad for the World Cup qualifier with Scotland and the friendly in France.

He will then return to Gawthorpe early in July ahead of the 2017/18 season and admits he has already had thoughts of what next term will bring.

“The thoughts are already creeping in for next year but I’ll try and have a bit of down time, assess the season and get ready to kick on,” he said.

“It’s where we want to be. The club has progressed every time. It’s been great, year on year we seem to improve and that’ll be needed again.”