WELL, what a happy new year it is. OK, I know we came away from Manchester City on Monday empty handed but just look at that Premier League table!

A haul of 23 points, eight points ahead of Sunderland in that last relegation spot, seven more than 17th and even four clear of Middlesbrough in 16th. Marvellous!

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Two games since my last column and two decent performances which I think shows definite progression.

The 4-1 battering of Sunderland was pretty run of the mill in the end, the Black Cats’ defenders essentially gift-wrapping a great hat-trick for Andre Gray in one of the worse displays I’ve seen from a visiting team in a long while.

David Moyes looked shellshocked in the press conference after the game and despite their 2-2 draw against Liverpool on Monday I think he’ll really struggle to turn their fortunes around.

I think the only negative from the game from a Clarets perspective was conceding but I’m being a little bit picky there!

Onto City and I think most of us would have been happy just to not be on the end of the thumping.

In the end I think it was a little bit of a missed opportunity, something Sean Dyche eluded to after the match.

City were reduced to 10-men just after the half hour mark but instead of that giving us the extra momentum, we seemed a little unsure of ourselves.

Until that point I felt we had held our own quite well.

The difference though, like with so many top flight sides, is City’s ability to bring on the likes of Sergio Aguero and David Silva from the bench - which is exactly what Pep Guardiola did at half time.

They proved the difference and when Aguero fired in a second from an almost-impossible angle, damage limitation looked the order of the day.

To our credit we kept probing and when Ben Mee pulled one back – given thanks to the much-hyped goal-line technology – it looked like a comeback was on.

But City resorted to a bit of gamesmanship and the game kind of fizzled out.

But I still think we’re in a cracking position to stay up which is the only aim for me.