Fabio Carvalho remains confident that Fulham can lift the Championship trophy despite their defeat at Derby County on Friday night.

The Portuguese under-21 international’s brilliantly-taken first half strike appeared to put the Whites on the way to promotion at Pride Park, but Wayne Rooney’s side stunned the league leaders with two goals after the interval to put the champagne on ice.

Carvalho, who has had a sensational season for Marco Silva’s side, told the club’s official website:

“Obviously we’re disappointed, because we know what we could have done, we could have got promotion there and then. But we’re still proud of ourselves and we’re still confident, because of everything we’ve done this season.

We know where we should be; the Premier League. We deserve it and the fans deserve it. We’re going to get there eventually, we just need to make sure we stay positive. That’s our mentality, and one thing we’ve done excellently this year is, when things haven’t gone our way, our bouncebackability has been spot on, and I’m sure we’ll bounce back again.”

“Getting promoted would be a big thing but, honestly, the biggest target we set ourselves was to win the league, which is what I think we’re going to do. Obviously we wanted to get promoted as soon as possible, which is something we deserve, but it would be even more special to do it in front of our home fans.

“They were tremendous throughout the whole 90 minutes over there. Obviously the result didn’t go our way but it was good to see them with us, like always, and supporting us to the best of their ability.”