THE standard line trotted out about a visit to Stoke City is that you know exactly what you are going to get.

But even Nostradamus would have done well to predict that the Clarets would find themselves two goals to the good before quarter past three last Saturday.

Yet perhaps it wasn’t such a surprise after all.

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It has been a feature of Burnley’s play this season that they have begun games in a positive manner; taking the fight to the opposition and trying to make things happen.

As a strategy for a newly promoted club trying to stay in the Premier League, you could do a lot worse – it certainly beats sitting back and keeping your fingers crossed that something might drop for you. And at the Britannia, it worked a treat.

Of course, if that’s the way you are going to go about your business, it always helps to have someone who knows where the goals are, and in Danny Ings the Clarets have just the man for the job.

Writing about the 22 year-old’s long-term future last week, I said that the striker needed to prove he could cut it at this level if he had one eye on a move away from Turf Moor come the summer.

Ings’ performance against Stoke went some way to providing that evidence.

Twice in the space of 120 seconds, the former Bournemouth youngster did for Burnley exactly what he had done for the England Under-21s a couple of weeks back, i.e. he was in the right place at the right time – and as Andy Payton would tell you, that doesn’t happen by accident.

But it wasn’t just the striker’s goals that impressed.

The Potters had clearly targeted Ings for some of the rough stuff and Ings was on the end of some pretty brutal treatment at times without much protection from referee, Martin Atkinson.

Ings was modest enough to play down his part in the victory, choosing instead to praise the defence.

Quite right too.

After going through a porous period, including a spell which saw them leak fifteen in five games, there was an altogether more resilient look to the back four against Stoke.

That was some bombardment in the second half, yet standing tall through it all was Stephen Ward.

Whatever Mark Hughes’ City threw into the box, Ward repelled. It was an immense display from the Republic of Ireland defender.

The table’s looking a lot healthier than it did about three weeks ago.

But how much healthier would it look if we could see off an unconvincing-looking Aston Villa and get ourselves out of the relegation zone?