CLARETS captain Jason Shackell says Premier League survival would be a bigger achievement than winning promotion last season, and his best in football.

Burnley go into their last 10 games of the season second bottom on goal difference behind Queens Park Rangers and three points adrift of safety.

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But Shackell is confident the Clarets are capable of getting the points needed to secure a second top flight season, despite Saturday night's visit of Manchester City being the first in a run of four games against teams in the top seven.

“I think it would be a bigger achievement this year," said the centre half.

“We haven’t got the resources that some of the other teams have got, we haven’t gone out and splashed lots of cash, so if we can stay in the league when everyone was writing us off again it would be an incredible achievement.

“Can we stay in the league?

“I’m confident that every player in that dressing room believes we can and I believe we can. I believe we’ve got the quality, we’re playing well, we’re a difficult team to play against, and I still believe we’re going to get enough points to stay up.

"And for me – although last year was immense – it would probably be bigger than that."

Although Burnley spent the majority of last season in the Championship's top two, outsiders frequently questioned whether their lofty position could be sustained.

Shackell admits last season's promotion celebrations, after second place was secured with two games to spare, included a sense of satisfaction at proving the doubters wrong.

He hopes for a similar experience come May.

“It does give you that added fuel that if you can prove people wrong - we did it last year – and it’s nice. Everyone was writing us off and you go out and say ‘We told you’," said the former Norwich, Wolves and Derby defender “If we can do it again this year it would be great."

But the 31-year-old admits the Clarets have needed to adopt different elements of mental strength to stay in the survival mix so far.

“It’s a lot easier to be battling at the top than it is at the bottom," he said.

“But the gaffer talks about freedom a lot and we sort of do have that because people write you off and because nobody really expects too much from us it sort of empowers us to give it a crack and see what happens, because of what’s expected of us anyway.

“So although obviously the lads want to be up, and it is stressful fighting down at the bottom – 100 per cent, there is that powerful thing where there is freedom and you can go out there and do what we do best and just try to get some points.

“If we do stay up it would probably be a bigger achievement than what we did last year."

Asked if it would be his biggest achievement personally, Shackell added: “Definitely.

“I think if we stay up this year it would be up there for me.

“The main thing is for the club to stay up and for the lads.

“We’re confident. We’re happy where we are and we know we’ve got to pull our fingers out and make sure we get the points on the board, and there’s no reason why we can’t do that."