Andy Carroll steps up to keep cup dream alive

Liverpool 2 Everton 1

The team sheet read like a statement. Kenny Dalglish, embattled but defiant, was standing by his men. Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll, the overpriced and underperforming trio, were in the team.

For this crucial, season-defining game it was a bold declaration of trust.

It was not long before it looked like a mistake. Trailing 1-0, Carroll had missed an open goal. After Luis Suarez had equalised, Henderson had done his best to talk himself into a red card - Dalglish hurriedly hooked him off the pitch. With the game drifting towards extra-time, Downing had also been taken off after another insecure performance. Then, with three minutes remaining, Carroll repaid a little of the faith Dalglish has shown in him.

Everton were tiring but looked like they were going to hang on to force extra-time. Seamus Coleman, on as a substitute, had plenty of energy left but not the experience to direct it: he fouled Steven Gerrard when the Liverpool captain was going nowhere. Having already been booked Coleman moved away quickly, fearing a second yellow. The consequences proved to be even worse: Craig Bellamy addressed the free-kick and delivered a superb cross, all pace and dip, which Carroll met with a leap and a butt. "That goal was worth pounds 35?million alone," said Jamie Carragher after the game.

As the red half of the stadium celebrated, opposing manager David Moyes was gripped by frustration. That Liverpool were even level was down to an earlier Everton mistake: he knew that his side had played as much of a role in their own defeat as Liverpool.

With just over an hour played, Everton had looked comfortable. Liverpool had been desperately poor in the first half - the quality of the football never matching the intensity of the atmosphere - but had come out with greater resolution after the break. Not enough, though, to give Everton major difficulties. Then Sylvain Distin received the ball as the last man near the left touchline. Suarez, anticipating, scuttled off. Maybe his presence unnerved the normally cool Everton defender but he completely undercooked his attempted back-pass. With two touches Suarez had the ball in the net. His first tamed the ball into his path, the second, struck with the outside of the right boot, guided it past Tim Howard.

 While many of his team-mates laboured, Suarez had been sharp, wriggling and scrapping his way into any space left by the Everton defence. Still, it took that mistake to give him the clear sight of goal.

It was hard for Distin to take. He won the cup with Portsmouth in 2008; he knew the cost of his mistake. After the final whistle he went to the Everton fans, visibly upset and holding up his hands in apology. It was a dignified thing to do, and those supporters still in the crowd did their best to buck him up. For much of the afternoon it had looked like being celebration, not consolation, that would follow the final whistle.

Following the sacking of director of football Damien Comolli, and the mounting criticism of their failures in the league this season, you might have expected an energetic, defiant start from Dalglish's team. Instead, it was curiously flat.

With Maxi Rodriguez and Bellamy sitting on the bench, they offered barely any threat to the Everton goal after Jay Spearing had skied an effort in the first few minutes. Everton started to dominate and Nikica Jelavic was the man giving Liverpool problems - almost opening the scoring with a spectacular scissor kick from Tim Cahill's flick.

Befitting the way this game would unfold, it was a Liverpool mistake that gave Everton a 24th-minute lead. Martin Skrtel tried to head clear a long ball but only succeeded in knocking it into the back of Jelavic's head. The ball dropped into the Liverpool area, at the feet of Carragher and Daniel Agger. They both waited for each other to clear before the former belatedly tried to smash it away. Cahill had closed it down and the rebound dropped for Jelavic, who calmly passed it around Brad Jones in the Liverpool goal.

 Replays showed it might have been fractionally offside, but there was no question that the blame lay with Liverpool's defenders.

Carragher was in the team at the expense of Jose Enrique, with Agger playing at left back. Yet Liverpool never looked comfortable with that plan and neither of their full backs got forward to hurt Everton. Things might have been even better for Moyes's team at the break had Jelavic guided a dangerous-looking free-kick inside the post.

Liverpool's lassitude was clearly addressed at half-time.

Downing and Henderson switched flanks and suddenly there was a bit of intent about them. Downing got free on the right and stood up a perfect cross with his right boot. In a game short on opportunities, Carroll could not have hoped for a better chance. With a flick of the ponytail he headed it wide. As Dalglish turned away in frustration, Carroll buried his head in his shirt. It was a moment for hiding.

The owners, John W Henry and Tom Werner, were not here to see it. They had returned to the United States for the start of the baseball season, having flown in to sack Comolli, a move that made their unhappiness with what is going on at the club clear. This was Liverpool's chance to give the season a healthier complexion and it was drifting away.

Suarez delivered when he was gifted his chance but Carroll was soon on strike two, missing another excellent opportunity on the edge of the box after Coleman had handled on the floor.

Rodriguez and Bellamy had given Liverpool an edge but as chances were spurned, the game closed on extra-time. Then, to use a phrase Liverpool's owners will certainly understand, Carroll stepped up to the plate.