In what could well be Rob's last season in professional football, he could be forgiven for being saddened at missing out on one more opportunity to play on Manchester United's home stage.
"It would have been nice but I would rather get promotion than go and visit Old Trafford," he says.
"Some of these kids want to play at Old Trafford every year and to do that you have to win promotion, which is our ultimate aim.
"If we keep playing as well as we did against Fulham when we face first division teams we will win more than we lose.
"We need to push ourselves back into the playoff spots and I still believe that the position of one or two is not beyond us.
"It will take a long run of results but I think we are one team that is capable of doing it in that division.
"We haven't actually had a good run all season and with a team with such good players as we have got will eventually have a good run.
"We haven't yet done that in consecutive games and I think it is not far off.
"I am not being biased - I think we have got the best squad and I am sure a run is not far off."
Rob knows he is no longer semi-automatically guaranteed a place at least on the bench as he was at the start of the season, and he says:
"A club the size of West Ham should have a big squad to choose from and at the moment the lads are playing well - hopefully that will continue and we will get promoted.
"You have to be patient and wait your chance; everyone wants to play in the team and I am no different.
"I don't pick the team, though, the manager does and it is down to him ultimately - he has to get the team promoted and I have the greatest respect for Alan Pardew, who I have known a long, long time.
"If he decides I should play, great, if not he certainly won't hear any moans from me."
The Fulham game was his comeback game after missing a lot of the winter with a knee problem, and he says:
"The knee is fine; I played three reserve games which at my age is enough, I don't get any more fitter with more, the knee is just something I have to manage throughout the week."
Looking back at the defeat on Tuesday, he says:
"I thought the lads played very well in the first half and the team that scored the first goal was going to win the game.
"Unfortunately for us, Fulham got it; I don't think we played as well in the second half as we did in the first; in the first I thought we had countless chances and should maybe have put one or two away - 1-0 or 2-0 to us I think would have been a fair result but unfortunately against Premiership teams if you don't take your chances they will punish you, which is what they did.
"I thought we totally dominated them in the first half; I remember them having one chance with a header but we had about five or six good chances and the keeper played very well as he did in the first game.
"We were unfortunate and 3-0 wasn't a fair reflection of the game; after 1-0 we were chasing the game so it was a bit false - Alan was trying to force the game to get a goal back as quickly as possible but unfortunately it didn't happen and they caught us on the break a couple of times.
"Towards the end of the game they looked more likely to score than we did - but the lads can keep their heads up and they are playing very well in the league.
"I think we played well without getting the result we deserved."
Speaking ahead of the Cardiff game, he adds:
"They are just hanging around there; they are a dangerous team with some dangerous players of whom Earnshaw is one that I have been very impressed with and who we will have to watch very carefully.
"But I don't care who we play in this division; I think the majority of games we have drawn and lost this season we should have won."