Lawrie Sanchez insists he can handle the pressure as Fulham continue to flirt with danger at the wrong end of the Barclays Premier League table.
The Fulham boss had labelled their clash against rock-bottom Derby as a "six-pointer" but Sanchez had to settle for just one thanks largely to an inspirational goalkeeping display from recalled Antti Niemi.
They booed Sanchez's team off the field at the end of another frustrating day and while the Fulham boss is the first to admit that eight points from 10 games is simply not good enough, he insists he can handle the pressure such a run creates.
"The fans have every right to be frustrated," he said.
"We haven't accumulated enough points from the goals we've scored. It is a strange season. Every game is pressure. A manager's job is pressure and that is what I am paid to deal with - the pressure. We put ourselves up for it as managers and we get on with it.
"If we had lost against Derby I would not have been smiling because it would have been a really bad day. But it's an okay bad day instead.
"We are not in trouble this week because we are not in the bottom three. Eight points from 10 games is not great. But there are another seven teams at least who are the same or worse than us.
"I am confident in every game we play. I see other teams in the bottom half getting beaten by seven, five, and three regularly. But our worst defeat was 2-0 by Portsmouth. If we were getting battered by teams week-in and week-out, it would be different.
"On that basis we are not bad but you need points on the board and other teams below you. Eight from 10 is not good enough. I know that, the players know that and the fans know that .
"It isn't good enough and it is not going to be good enough to play the next 28 games and get the same number of points. But we are a competitive team. We didn't crumble against Derby. We could have lost 2-0 and than I would have been sat here wondering where do we go from here. But we didn't."