Sone Aluko says not making it to Wembley with Fulham never crossed his mind before the Play-off game with Reading, but insists they must bounce back from the defeat.
Slavisa Jokanovic's side were knocked out of the Championship Play-offs after they were defeated 2-1 on aggregate by Reading , with Yann Kermorgant's penalty sealing the fate of the tie.
It was hard to take for the side and for the 2000 travelling supporters, who pundits far and wide had tipped as the side to go up from the end of season showpiece.
It wasn't just the pundits who were confident - Aluko himself revealed that not making it to Wembley never crossed his mind, but has said his team mates need to learn from this experience and take it into next season.
He said: "It's a tough one to take, a real tough one, I didn't even consider ourselves losing, I was so confident we would get to the final at least.
"They way we played, we probably deserved to win, second half especially we dominated the game and had some big chances but that's football and that's life.
"We have to get up and go again and as a team we need to bounce back from this, it's a really tough feeling to take.
"We can only go one way, we have to learn from this and improve, we had patches in the season where if we were slightly better we wouldn't be in the position we are and we'd be first or second.
"Over the course of the season these mistakes were made and you look at the amount of penalties we missed and we dominated most games so it's tough because we're a good team and we know it.
"There's a lot of improvement for us still."
