Mark Schwarzer was happy to help Fulham continue their improved form with a win over Burnley this week, although the Australian goalkeeper concedes that there were a few nervy first-half moments at Craven Cottage.

In the second-half we looked more at ease. I thought Burnley at times were very dangerous. Even at two-nil up just before half-time, we went through a period where we made a couple of silly mistakes and got a bit complacent.

We were made aware of that at half-time and made sure that we started the second-half in confident fashion and cut out any minor mistakes that could allow them back into the game.

It was very important that we got back to winning ways as we’d gone quite a number of games without winning – it wasn’t pleasant and we needed to get back on track because before long you start looking over your shoulder at what’s going on below.

The boys fought very hard over the last couple of weeks to get results. Before our last three results, we played some pretty decent football but we always had nothing to show for it, which was probably the most frustrating thing of all.

Obviously when you’re picking up no points from five games, you start to drift down towards the bottom half of the table. That always starts to play on your mind but we were always confident in our ability to grind out a couple of results. We did that against Portsmouth and Bolton and that gave us a platform to build on. The performance against Burnley certainly showed that the confidence is back again. The dogged defending and solidity that we’ve shown over the last 18 months has come back and we deservedly won that game.

Schwarzer says Fulham will treat both of their next two opponents – League Two Notts County and Europa League holders Shakhtar Donetsk – with the same level of respect.

The way we’ve been playing, we would liked to have continued playing league games. Saying that, the Cup is an opportunity for us to change focus a little. The FA Cup is a fantastic tournament to be involved in. I’ve been fortunate over the course of my career to be involved in the latter stages of the Cup quite a number of times. It’s the most historic cup competition in the world and the way things have panned out so far means it’s going to be a very interesting competition this season.

The one thing we can’t do is take Notts County for granted. They’re going to come to the Cottage with a lot of confidence having beaten Wigan in the last round. It’s going to be a very tough game for us.