BURNLEY always expected to survive in the Premier League this season and Clarets defender Ben Mee insists the squad is continuing to look up the table and not down ahead of this weekend’s trip to Hull City.

The Clarets head into the final third of the season with a 10-point cushion on the bottom three and the chance to almost make sure of safety if they can claim positive results from a run of four successive away games, including three against the bottom six.

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That run begins at Hull on Saturday when Sean Dyche’s side aim to land their first away win of the season.

And Mee is determined that the Clarets won’t be dragged back into a relegation scrap and instead wants to see how far Burnley can progress.

“I don’t think there was any expectation on us from the outside at the beginning of the season so that allowed us to play with no pressure and no fear from the outside, from the inside we want to go and do well and we expect to be in this league next year, and that’s what we expected from the very beginning,” he said.

 “We need to take it very seriously because we don’t want to get dragged back down and be in and around the relegation places so we need to kick on and we need to see how far we can get with it rather than looking downwards.

“We’re looking at seeing how far we can go as a group and how many points we can get. Obviously the main aim is to stay in the league, that would be the big thing for us but we want to get as many wins and points on the board and when we start doing that it’ll be good.”

This season has been a marked improvement on Burnley’s last shot at the Premier League two years ago.

They already have two more wins on the board than they managed in the whole of that campaign, while they need just one more goal and three more points to match the tallies they achieved in 2014/15.

Mee started 32 league campaigns two years ago and he feels the experience of that season has helped this time around, especially in tight games with the Clarets edging home encounters with Middlesbrough, Southampton and Leicester City recently.

“It’s difficult to put your finger on what’s changed,” he said.

“Obviously we’ve got that experience of being in the Premier League, staying in games for longer then nicking wins maybe we were a bit naive last time and not staying in games as much as this season. We’ve managed to get a few late goals and nick a few points.”