SEAN Dyche celebrated a fifth straight Premier League win and admitted the club is in "very good shape" in the quest to bring European football back to Burnley for the first time in over half a century.

The Clarets boss has played down talk of Europa League football, despite occupying seventh spot since before Christmas.

But as early goals for Chris Wood and Kevin Long helped Burnley to a 2-1 win over nearest challengers Leicester City, increasing the gap between the teams to nine points, Dyche spoke of a realistic target.

“We’re in very good shape," said Dyche, whose side held on after Jamie Vardy reduced the Foxes' deficit with around 20 minutes to go.

“The biggest thing for me is to stay focused on what we want to do. We’ve achieved more than we did last year, which is the first marker, now it’s open-mind and see how far it can take us, without losing sight of the fact we’re reality-bound here.

“In the Premier League it’s very difficult, we’ve never made statements we’re going to walk through it and start outplaying teams every week, because we’re not.

“We know what we are but that’s a weapon in itself. To deliver performances that can get you results, so I’m very pleased with that.”

Leicester came out fighting after trailing 2-0 at the break, and Dyche added: “Credit to Leicester. The last half an hour at least they were excellent. But they’re a good side, people forget that, we’re in the Premier League and I haven’t come across one yet that are awful - they’re all good sides."

Burnley won five games on the bounce for the first time in the top flight for 50 years.

“It’s very difficult to get five wins on the trot, so very pleased overall," Dyche said.

“We’ve had to work for everything today.

“After a very fast start and a pretty decent first half, I thought, in general, they’ve had two moments, Popey (Nick) making a fantastic save from one of them, and Vardy mis-heading one.

“We started well second half, but 2-0 is a funny scoreline, especially at this stage of the season. They had nothing to lose and played like that, they just threw more and more bodies forward.

“They’ve got very technical players and an England forward who can score a goal, and he did.

“So we had to show a different side of ourselves, the organisation, the diligence, and the will and demand."

Speaking to Match of the Day Leicester manager Claude Puel conceded the race for seventh, saying: "We deserved a result at the end. It is difficult because we lose our run for the Europa League cup but congratulations to Burnley. They deserve it.

“Of course there are games remaining but they (Burnley) now have a lot of chances.”