The received wisdom is that as a supporter of a struggling club visiting Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, there are certain things that it is probably wise to brace yourself for.

You accept that you are going to be in for a tough afternoon. You expect the possession count to be something like 70/30 in favour of the home side.

And you acknowledge that the final outcome is unlikely to be one that has you reaching for a celebratory snifter. To be fair, the received wisdom usually turns out to be on the money.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Nobody was seriously tipping Burnley to leave north London with their first win of 2014/15.

The problem was that for most of Saturday afternoon, it rather looked as though the Clarets themselves had also subscribed to that school of thought.

That’s not to suggest that Sean Dyche should have adopted a gung-ho approach and thrown caution to the wind – particularly when the opposition front four comprised Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Santi Cazorla, Danny Welbeck and the sublime and lethal talent that is Alexis Sanchez. Nor does it mean that Burnley should have abandoned their well-ingrained principles of effort, organisation and discipline.

But from the Clock End it seemed there was little hope or ambition above digging in and settling for a point.

The line usually trotted out by pundits after defeats such as this, is that fixtures against teams likely to be in the top four will not define our season.

Maybe not; but that’s 24 points casually written off. And given that Burnley are averaging less than a point every other game and are currently five adrift of safety, that seems like a rather reckless attitude.

Contrast Burnley’s approach with that of fellow strugglers, Queen Park Rangers at Chelsea.

Granted, Harry Redknapp’s team left Stamford Bridge no better off than they had been at 3pm, but at least they gave it a good go, bloodied their opponent’s nose and were unlucky not to come away with a point.

Meanwhile back at the Emirates, the only real threat posed to Wojciech Szczesny, Calum Chambers, Per Mertesacker, Nacho Monreal and Kieran Gibbs was that of boredom. Dyche somehow needs to come up with a strategy that retains the best of Burnley’s qualities – resilience, doggedness and discipline – while building in a greater degree of flexibility that allows them to take the game to superior opposition.

Burnley fought long, hard and superbly well to escape the drudgery of the Championship and they deserve their seat among the elite.

It shouldn’t be rescinded without a fight.