Metrics from both Opta and Gracenote suggest that given the number and quality of chances created against Burnley this season, Dyche’s team should have conceded 17 goals. The actual figure is only nine, a defensive record bettered only by Manchester City and Manchester United and matched only by Spurs.

It seems, then, as though it might all just be good fortune, and at some point the luck will run out. A day will come when Pope does not make quite so many saves, when Mee and Tarkowski do not make quite so many blocks, when shots that were spinning wide will start to curl in, and at that point Burnley will slide down the table.

It is an enticing interpretation, in part, because it fits the widespread perception of Burnley as nothing more than a team of doughty, hard-bitten journeymen trying to survive among the sophisticates of the Premier League on nothing more than grim determination. The idea that Dyche’s team has ridden its luck by throwing its bodies in the way somehow fits.

Burnley, of course, rejects the assessment that its players are artisans among the aesthetes. Dyche, in particular, bridles at the lack of credit he believes he and his team receive for what, in others, might be recognized as innovation or intelligence. He might, if he chose, use the way Burnley defends as a prime example.

When Dyche arrived at the club in 2012, he brought a few DVDs for his players to watch. One contained video of the Valencia teams that had been so successful around the turn of the century; another, more recent, was of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, which Dyche had “studied for a year, but only watching what they did off the ball.” A third video case study came from a club side in Argentina.