With 20 league goals between them before the end of November, Danny Ings and Sam Vokes could be forgiven for taking issue with the blunt assertion offered by the old adage that strikers win you games but defenders win you titles.

There’s around two-thirds of this campaign yet to unfold, so talk of being top of the pile come the first Saturday in May is more than a little premature.

But by the banks of the Trent last weekend, there was ample evidence that if there is any truth in the maxim, then Burnley are as well prepared as anyone for the long haul ahead.

Naturally, Sean Dyche would insist that the team defended as a collective unit.

Yet after their sterling resistance against Nottingham Forest, Messrs Mee, Duff, Shackell and Trippier deserve special praise for the way they frustrated, thwarted and ultimately repelled everything that the home side threw at them for most of the second half.

It seems odd to talk about defensive resilience without making reference to Tom Heaton.

But the fact that he was largely under-employed during Forest’s considerable spells in the ascendancy, serves as testimony to how well-protected the custodian was by those in front of him.

After the final whistle, Billy Davies – a character in no danger of being mistaken for a stand-up comedian – claimed Forest were “totally dominant” and that it was “a travesty” that his side didn’t take maximum points. It was mildly amusing to watch the grumpiest man in football attempt to explain how his expensively-assembled charges failed to overturn an outfit put together at a fraction of the cost.

But there was something mildly irksome about the way that the Scot failed to credit the Clarets defending.

Preventing the opposition from scoring is every bit as important an aspect of the game as sticking the ball in the net, yet it is always the latter that gets the headlines.

Goals are that much rarer and more dynamic than well-timed tackles and hence solicit a more vociferous response from crowds and commentators. But that shouldn’t detract from the importance of what some managers and pundits like to call, “the ugly side of the game.”

For example, everyone knows that Ings and Vokes now have ten goals each. But a statistic trotted out with much less frequency is that the Clarets have recorded seven clean sheets, a feat only bettered by QPR with ten.

Without goals the game simply wouldn’t work. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the efforts of those who attempt to stop them being scored.