FULHAM’s decision to sack Felix Magath will have no bearing on the way Blackburn Rovers approach today’s Craven Cottage clash (3pm), according to Gary Bowyer.

Magath became the fifth Championship manager to lose his job this season after he paid the price for Fulham’s winless start following their relegation from the Premier League.

Bowyer expects some sort of reaction from a Cottagers team that will be led by caretaker manager Kit Symons.

But the Rovers boss insists his side’s focus will solely be on bouncing back from Wednesday’s 3-2 defeat to Derby County at Ewood Park.

Bowyer said: “We can’t control what’s gone off at Fulham but what we can control is our level of performance.

“It’s about what we do and it’s about us starting the game the way we finished on Wednesday night.

“There does always seem to be a reaction when a manager loses his job, sometimes it is positive and sometimes it can have the opposite effect.

“But it’s all about us and that’s the message we will be giving to the players.

“We want to get on the front and try and quiet their crowd down straight away.”

Fulham fans have been calling for Magath to be sacked after winning just four of his 20 matches in charge.

On Thursday night they got their wish as the German was shown the door hours after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s departure from Cardiff City.

Bowyer, who is the seventh longest serving manager in the Championship after 17 months in the job, said: “We are seven games in – you’ve got to give people longer than that.

“What happens now? Does the next manager only get seven games?

“If you look last year as an example, Leicester under Nigel Pearson had three seasons at rebuilding the club.

“It is like building a house, you don’t do it in a week, you have to lay the foundations and add to it.

“It is the same process in football, you can’t just build a team straight away, it takes time and Leicester are an example of what happens when you have a vision of long-term rather than short-term.”

Rovers travel to West London today on the back of their first home loss in the league since March 12.

Bowyer argued after the defeat to Derby that they deserved at least a draw.

But yesterday he agreed that ‘sometimes you have to take your hat off to the opposition’.

He maintained, however, his delight at the way Rovers never gave in.

Bowyer said: “We made a terrific start but then Derby paid us the upmost respect by pressing the life out of us in the first half and as a result of that we couldn’t quite get going.

“They played the best football they have played this season but I thought we were getting back into the game in the second half.

“The decision obviously went against us for their third goal but the players rallied, stuck together and fought to the end.

“We were really pleased with that and what we have got to do now is take that to Fulham and start the game in the same manner.”