By Fulham FC

We were a bit disappointed when we left Millwall last week, but a draw at the Den is never a bad result. It’s always a tough place to go, and their players would have been keen to put in a performance after our meeting earlier in the season when we were firing on all cylinders and battered them 4-0. They’ve got Gary Rowett in there now and they picked up some form after his appointment. You can see how good a point it was by the fact that they went to Preston three days later and won.

The main talking point was Millwall’s equaliser which was so offside. It’s hard to take, especially for the players who were quite rightly fuming. You hate to see it when it’s so obvious, when the lads have done their jobs properly by playing them offside. People say these things even themselves out over the course of the season, but this was a particularly difficult one to take. We can’t do anything about it, though, so we dust ourselves off and go again.

Barnsley was a result that I don’t think anyone saw coming. You can blame the weather but I don’t think, as individuals and as a collective, it was good enough. The players will know that. It just wasn’t our day, but thankfully we haven’t had too many of those; Hull at home was kind of similar. Maybe it was always on the cards that Cauley Woodrow was going to score on his first return to Craven Cottage having come through the youth system here. We have to move on, get back to what we had been doing and try to correct it in the next game.

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I mentioned on The Fulham Fix on Monday that all teams have games like that one. Our team that won the title in 2000/01 was blowing sides away every week, then we lost 2-0 to Stockport, a side that was fighting relegation. You can’t go into games thinking you’re going to win, you have to earn the right. Barnsley was probably a coupon-buster for most of the country, as was the Stockport match for us. If you take your eye off the ball for one second in this league you can get punished. I’m sure it will serve as a lesson for the players to be on point every game.

Derby at home was one of our more comfortable wins this season, but it will be a difficult game on Friday because they are very strong at Pride Park. That said, we seem to love playing on Friday nights, regardless of whether that’s home or away. It’s going to be a good game of football between two good sides. I remember the fixture at the Cottage and I thought we played well. We need to show a reaction to the Barnsley defeat, and with the players we’ve got we are more than capable of doing that on Friday.

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One of the big stories this season has been Wayne Rooney joining Derby, and his presence in the dressing room will have given them a huge boost. He will have raised the standard of training from day one. The biggest thing for a player is having the respect of your teammates, and he will have gone in there and lifted everyone. People will see how he trains, what he does before and after, and it will just raise everyone’s game. Players will want to win his respect as well so they’ll be giving everything, and it’s no coincidence that Derby’s results have improved since his arrival.

It’s Wayne Rooney at the end of the day, he was one of the best players in England for a good 12 or so years. He hasn’t gone there just for a holiday, you can’t cruise in the Championship, and he’ll want to do as well as he can. I played against him when he was at Everton and Manchester United, and also trained with him when we were both in the England squad. He was an exceptional talent from such a young age – you don’t become Man United’s all-time goal scorer by being average. He won everything there, so should be applauded as one of England’s greatest players. We certainly won’t be underestimating him on Friday, that’s for sure.