Croatian midfielder Luka Modric is regarded as one of the best midfielders in the world today. Since joining Tottenham Hotspur in April 2008 for a record fee he has played a key role in the club's success in the last couple of seasons.

Not suprising, Modric was keenly pursued by Chelsea at the start of the season, but all their bids for the Croatian were turned down by Spurs. And it seemed he has made the right move with Spurs making a sensational start to the season, sitting pretty at third position in the English Premier League standings above the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.

The 26-year-old also played a crucial role in helping Croatia qualify for next year's European Championship, to be held in Poland and Ukraine.

Modric reveals his delight at Croatia's qualification for Euro 2012 and the secret behind Tottenham's superb start in this season's English Premier League.

Tell us about helping Croatia qualify for the European Championships?

It was an amazing achievement. There was a lot of pressure and it was very important for us and for everyone in Croatia to qualify for the Euro finals. We made it and we are very happy about that.

How pleased were you with the win against Aston Villa?

It was a very important game for us because it was the first game after the international break. We were away from each other for a long time and it was important to win this game.

Now we're up to third place and there are hard games coming up. We need to keep going and just keep up this momentum. We're playing well, we're fighting for each other and we need to keep going.

How much of a contribution have Scott Parker and Emmanuel Adebayor made?

We needed some fresh blood in the team and Scott and Manu are great players, improved us and you can see that on the pitch.

And we are playing some good football at the moment, and demonstrated that again against Aston Villa?

They have good players, experience, internationals but we showed how much quality we have. We are full of confidence, we've won eight games out of nine now.