Michael Timlin will return to Craven Cottage with Swindon today and believes the League One side should be looking to earn an FA Cup replay as a ‘minimum’.

We should just go there and play our own game and hopefully that should be enough. I’m sure that Fulham would have been wanting to play against a different team to us seeing as we’ve been doing so well.

As far as money’s concerned it would be great for Swindon to get a replay, but both sides will be going into the game looking for a win. We’re going to go down there looking for a win and if not the minimum is a replay.

As long as we start the game really well then we should have a good day down there. We went to Wolves and played them off the park but had to go to penalties. I think it will be a harder game against Fulham.

I know some of the guys who are still there like Konchesky and Danny Murphy and Aaron Hughes, but there has been a lot of change since I was there. But we’re full of confidence at the club and putting in a good performance in a cup game is going to stand us in good stead for the rest of the league season.

Timlin, who struggled to break into the Fulham first team after graduating from the Academy, made just four first-team appearances in four years at the Cottage. He says he owes a lot to Roy Hodgson, who allowed him to join Swindon on loan, something former manager Lawrie Sanchez rejected.

When I left to come to Swindon on loan the second time, Roy Hodgson had just taken over and he knew my desire to get out after enjoying my first spell. Sanchez wouldn’t let me go out so I owe a good thank you to Roy because it allowed me to get playing again.

He has definitely made them a lot stronger as a team and a lot of the sides in the Premiership are respecting them more than they had been. They look like a top 10 team now, rather than a side always flirting with relegation, so we have to go down there with a positive attitude.

As long as we go down with the right frame of mind, who knows what it might bring us?

In another interview with the Daily Mirror, Timlin says he has no regrets about leaving Fulham.

I’m looking forward to it massively. It’s nice to go back. I want and hope that the team do well and get the result that we need.

I learnt everything I know at Fulham, they’re my parent club. I’m sure there are a lot of Fulham fans that had heard a lot about me but I didn’t fulfil my potential through injury or not being selected. So this is an opportunity to go back and enjoy it and put on a good show.

It was a brave move for the Irish midfielder, who is expected to be among the substitutes this afternoon, to turn down a new contract at the Premier League club and sign for Swindon.

Possibly I would have benefited being under Roy, but by the time he had came in I had my heart set on getting out and playing football.

I think back sometimes that maybe if he had arrived a bit earlier, things would have been different. But things happen for a reason. I was happy to get out and I’m delighted to be part of a squad at a club with an ambition to go places.

Roy knew I had the ambition to get out and play, I was grateful to him for letting me go. He understood.