BLACKBURN Rovers boss Gary Bowyer has urged his side to make the most of home comforts.

Starting with today’s visit of Fulham four of Rovers’ next six Championship matches are at Ewood Park.

And Bowyer believes the run of home games, which also includes clashes against Rotherham United, Blackpool and Norwich City, offer a real chance to close the gap on the play-offs.

Rovers remain 11 points behind the top six after their winless run stretched to five matches on Tuesday when they went down 2-0 at Derby County.

Bowyer was furious after the self-inflicted defeat, describing himself as the angriest and most frustrated he had been after a game, but he has been pleased by the response he has seen in training and now wants to see a similar reaction this afternoon.

Bowyer said: “The reaction of the players has been good and everybody is gearing up to putting right what happened against Derby against Fulham.

“They are an honest bunch and they know we are demanding a reaction and I’m fully confident of them delivering it.

“That starts with Fulham. They’ve turned it around under Kit Symons and have made progress since the last time we played them.

“They’ve got two very good strikers in Ross McCormack and Hugo Rodallega and then there’s obviously the return of Ryan Tunnicliffe.

“He’ll be able to provide information to them about our players and about our strengths and weaknesses so we’ve just got to make sure we have that response we’ve talked about and start those four games out of six at home in a confident manner.

“We’ve got to capitalise on those games and hopefully by the end of them we will be talking about having done that.”

Bowyer admits Rovers are going through a tough time but stressed he is every bit as frustrated as the fans.

He said: “I’ve been here over 10 years now and there’s no-one more committed to correct what has gone on here over the last four or five years than me.

“I share the supporters’ frustrations and it just makes me doubly determined to get on a run because I still believe we’re only one game away.”

Symons’ first match in charge of Fulham, initially in a caretaker capacity, was September’s reverse encounter at Craven Cottage.

Rovers ran out 1-0 winners that day to open up a 12-point lead over the then winless Cottagers.

A Fulham victory this afternoon, however, would move them above their hosts .

Cottagers boss Symons, who scouted for Rovers during Mark Hughes’ time in charge of the club, said: “Gary Bowyer is someone I know quite well and he’s a real good lad, good manager and he’ll put out a team that he would expect to get a result against us.

“They’ll be fired up, they’ll be organised and they’ll be very competitive.

“They’re a typical Championship team really, they’ve got physical strength and they’ve got some craft and guile in there as well with some very good footballers.

“And that’s what the Championship is all about, you need to be able to mix it up and you need to be able to do both things.”

Symons recalled midfielder Tunnicliffe from his loan spell at Rovers at the start of this month.

And he said: “We’ll be getting a few inside tips off Tunners, for sure, but there’ll be no surprises from Blackburn for us.

“We’ve got plenty of scouting reports on Blackburn, we know them well.”