NICK Pope believes Burnley can improve their impressive clean sheet record further as they push for Europe in the final four games of the Premier League season.

The England man’s 14th shutout of the campaign, a top-flight high, and Jay Rodriguez’s header, handed the Clarets a 1-0 win at West Ham on Wednesday night.

Despite injuries, departures and speculation about Sean Dyche’s future, the Turf Moor men continue to defy the odds to ensure an interesting end to the season is on the cards.

“Right from the front we defend properly,” Pope told BT Sport.

“You could see right at the end lads running until they can’t run no more. It gives the defenders and me in goal such confidence to see them doing that.

“They are putting their bodies on the line for us and it just runs through the team it really does.

“The 14 clean sheets are really, really good and it’s a total we want to build on.

“We’ve still got four or five games to go and we’ll see how many we can get.

“It’s a great achievement for a team that’s not a top-six team.

“We’ve got something to play for and we’re going into these last few games really pushing to win every one.”

The England man was key as the Clarets held on late in the day to stay in the hunt for a return to the Europa League.

“It was a bit of an aerial assault,” he said. “They seemed to keep coming in and it was wave after wave towards the end.

“Sometimes on the road you have to do that in the Premier League, teams are not going to give up.

“West Ham fight really hard and are a good team, they kept coming and coming but fortunately we got a clean sheet and we’re really happy.”