There's been no evidence this season, that we're the sort of team that gets beaten heavily. There's clearly good team spirit. If we did go, say 3 down at half time against City, I don't see in our team that heads would go down and we'd lose by 6 or 7.
The next round of matches :
Leicester v Albion
Spurs v West Ham
Newcastle v Villa ( reasonable potential for Villa to make up ground on us )
Norwich v Everton
Wolves v Bournemouth
Burnley v Watford ( reasonable potential for Watford to make up ground on us ).
I'd take a draw v Leicester if offered now.
Our goal difference would be greatly reduced if we had only one more win, especially with Man City and Liverpool still to play
Yes I think 38 will probably be enough, but I'm confident we will surpass it anyway and finish on around 40-42 points.
I'd be interested in seeing what the table looked like with 8 games to go in the seasons where 38 points (and a good GD) wasn't enough. I'm sure someone with more time on their hands than me can dig it out, but I'm going to guess that there weren't 5 teams with 28 points or fewer at this stage.