I've managed to squeeze in a winter break to Tenerife, and news of Saturday's defeat left me with just another cold beer as consolation.

However, even that left a nasty taste in the mouth when I read about the alleged racism Mo Camara suffered.

Nobody condones such actions, but the one thing it does highlight is that it's the thickness of your skin and not the colour of it that is important to any footballer.

Whether you are black or white, the hard and fast facts are that you are going to take abuse from the fans of opposing teams.

It takes a certain person to block that out and get on with things, and I certainly found that out as a striker for Celtic.

I was probably open to as much abuse as anyone from Rangers fans - some of it pretty personal and unrepeatable - but I had to learn to cope with it mentally.

Then, at Burnley while playing against Blackburn, I had away fans spitting and then throwing coins at me as we came out of the tunnel - and such things are difficult to cope with.

I'm sure Mo will come back stronger from his unpleasant experience at the weekend, and hopefully a good game against West Ham will help the healing process.

Mo and the rest of the lads will certainly need to be at their best because the Hammers will form pretty stiff opposition. Their away form is as good as anything in this league and in David Connolly and Bobby Zamora, they can definitely do some damage at the Turf.

It's the start of a massive week really, with Preston next up on Saturday, and right now, I would take three points from those two games.

Gareth Taylor is doing his best to drag Nottingham Forest out of the relegation zone and that has closed everything up at the bottom again.

It's still looking like we'll need at least four wins to make sure we stay up, and with the likes of Norwich and Sunderland still to come, I'd like to see those points on the board sooner, rather than later.

The home form is the key to survival.

Finally I would like to congratulate Stan Ternent on his 300th game in charge of the Clarets.

The gaffer has helped put Burnley back on the map in recent years, and I know every fan inside Turf Moor will show their appreciation tonight.