The night we lost, ludicrously, at Burnley was the night I girded my loins and accepted that if we were to have any chance of survival we were going to have to go through an agonising ordeal before it would be secured.
Right now, we are enduring the agony.
I'm just surprised so many fans seemed to be of the notion that we would go on some mad heroic surge and we could relax for the last three games of the season. It's ordeal time! Embrace it!
The aim all along has been to get safe - ideally before the last day. We are on track to do that. Twists and turns were and are guaranteed. We have a very poor group of players - who will need to be purged in the summer - and a very inexperienced manager who is fighting for his reputation, continued employment, and the right to rebuild this club. We are not a really good side with a really experienced manager going through a bad patch. Lampard is learning every day. His pragmatism was late to the party - and he erred on the side of caution last night - but he's given himself every chance with two home games to come. It's as much as we could have hoped for that night at Turf Moor.
