IN MANY respects Burnley have had nothing to lose this season.

With their modest squad and a budget dwarfed by most, if not all, of their Premier League counterparts, there was a lack of expectation from the outside.

The pressure comes from within.

Despite their five-point deficit at the foot of the table, manager Sean Dyche remains driven to pull off the great escape in the final four games and ahead of this afternoon’s game at West Ham United has told his troops “we have to win”.

He added: “I think we’ve given good performances, not playing well all the time but generally good performances at a very tough level of football.

“It’s not disheartening, it’s frustrating.

“Disheartening would imply that the players are broken, they’re not.

“Frustrated, yes, they are, and so am I because we think our performances have been good enough to win more games than we have done.

“That’s more how it feels.

“We’ve got a fantastically honest bunch.

“They’re just frustrated we’ve been in positions to win games and we haven’t and we’ve made chances to win games and we haven’t won them.

“We’ve defended generally very well and kept teams down to minimal chances.

“A twist of fate is sometimes needed, a decision, a scratch of luck, a last-minute goal.

“Barring Stoke, over the season there haven’t been that many, so maybe we’re owed a few.

“But we can’t guarantee that so we’ve got to make sure performances are still good.

“We’re still on the right lines to win games, but now we’ve got to win them. It’s what we have to do.”

Hull City pulled away from the danger zone with their midweek win over Liverpool, while the pressure stayed on Leicester City, who remain only one point clear of the bottom three after their 4-1 game winning run was ended by champions-elect Chelsea at the King Power Stadium.

But Dyche maintains Burnley can only concentrate on their own camp – and he feels the absence of external pressure will be a benefit to them.

“I don’t think the players are feeling it the same as other teams, and other people. We’ve been written off by everyone and probably even more so now,” he said.

“It’s not a new situation or a new feeling for the group.

“It doesn’t guarantee that means it’s going to be all right for us.

“We have a relaxed focus. There has to be focus to perform, but I don’t think they’re as uptight as some of the players out there.

“Some can’t afford to go down, literally. That might be a weapon for them, I don’t know.

“But I always think that players have to have that way of playing that gives them that freedom.

“I like players to enjoy what they do. There has to be reality. There are some moments when it’s not such good news and it’s not so positive,” he explained. “But even then they’re aware that everything we do is for the right reasons.

“We’ve believed all season in what we do, we still believe in what we do.

“We have to make the players aware of the opposition as part of our job so they’ve hopefully got an understanding of what to expect.

“But it still comes down to us delivering performances no matter who that’s against, no matter what time of the season and that’s our focus .”

For Dyche and his men, there is still everything to gain.