The league table doesn't lie if you look at it in depth
Leeds United boss Daniel Farke has been pretty clear since the very start of the season what his team's target would be. Farke has reasoned over and over that 38 points is the target and that number will be enough to keep Leeds in the Premier League.
The closer Leeds have got to that golden number, the more people have questioned whether 38 points will be enough this season to keep Leeds in the division.
It's been enough most seasons in the last 20 years and there's no reason why that won't be the case again. The issue is, as football fans it's often in our DNA to think of the worst and dismiss the evidence that is in front of us. But let's look at that evidence.
The race to stay up is effectively now a four-way battle top avoid finishing 18th. Despite their impressive turn around in fortunes of late, Wolverhampton Wanderers have surely left it too late to survive and still need a miracle to stay up. They're gone and Burnley will follow suit, lying 10 points off Tottenham Hotspur in 17th and 13 points adrift of Leeds.
And so we're left with Leeds on 33 points, Nottingham Forest on 32 points, Spurs on 30 points and West Ham on 29 points, as the four teams left in this relegation fight. With seven games to play there's plenty of points up for grabs, but here's the thing...
In the last six games played by those four teams, there have been just two victories and one of those only came because Forest and Spurs were playing each other, increasing the chances of a win. The only other victory in the 23 matches played came when West Ham beat Fulham.
And so, with West Ham picking up just six points from their last six game and averaging less than a point per game across a whole season, why do we expect them to all of a sudden start playing like a top four team and pick up a host of victories? It's just the football fan's nature.
The Hammers need nine points to equal Farke's 38 point target, which with seven games remaining will require a win and an undefeated seven-match run, or at least two victories - which would equal the number of wins achieved by the four mentioned teams across the last two months in the league.
It's easy to see why Farke retains the confidence he has.