Eric Dier’s comments which show how Antonio Conte transformed Spurs’ Champions League ambitions

Eric Dier has explained how Antonio Conte has completely transformed Tottenham’s ambitions in his seven months at the club.

Spurs demolished Norwich City at Carrow Road yesterday to secure Champions League football for the first time in three years.

When the Italian took over in November, Tottenham were ninth in the Premier League, having won five and lost five from their opening 10 games.

Since then, Spurs have leapfrogged West Ham, Arsenal and Manchester United to secure Champions League football.

If the season started when Conte took over, Tottenham would be third.

And Dier - who has been a key cog in the Tottenham’s defence - explained how when Conte replaced Nuno Espirito Santo, the players were not even thinking about qualifying for the Champions League.

After the Norwich victory, the England international said: “It’s fantastic for us - we’re so happy to be back in the Champions League.

“It’s where we want to be as players and a club, when the manager arrived it wasn’t really on our radar so to get it at the end is fantastic.”

And Dier laughed when asked how good Conte was as a coach, who was standing next to him in mixed zone doing radio interviews at the time.

“He’s obviously been a huge part of it, everything points to that.

“It’s a bit awkward because he’s standing right next to me, but yeah, he knows what we think of him and how much we enjoy working with him, and we want that to continue next season.

“The manager has tonnes of experience in these situations and he relayed that experience to us this week, telling us about titles he lost on the last day against teams that weren’t playing for anything.

“So it was just about maintaining our standards all week and getting the job done.”

However despite the strong finish to the season Dier wasn’t getting complacent, and says Spurs can continue to improve.

He said: “There’s still a lot of room for improvement and we want to fill that space.

“The club is in a great situation right now with the manager and players, where we should use this as a ramp to keep moving forward.

“Everyone always points to investment but that’s just one part of it.

“There’s many areas we can improve and we need everyone to be going in the same direction. The players and the manager are.

“I’m sure the club will do the best they can as well.”