Dalglish and Gerrard left to rue Liverpool’s lacklustre start

LIVERPOOL manager Kenny Dalglish was left to lament his side’s inability to make an impact until Carroll was introduced just before the hour mark.

“We were excellent for the last half hour, but the game lasts for 90 minutes,” said the Scot. “You can’t give a team like Chelsea a two-goal head start. It’s credit to our lads that they went close to an equaliser after Andy scored, but they had left themselves too much to do.

“I don’t think the first hour was a reflection of the quality of the players we had out there but I don’t know if that was down to inexperience.” Nevertheless, in accepting Liverpool have endured a woeful league campaign, Dalglish does think some valuable lessons have been learned after appearances in both domestic cup finals.

“Whether there were [any new players joining the club] wasn’t going to be dictated by today’s result,” he said. “These players will get better and benefit from this experience – they’ve been in two cup finals in this season. They’ll have enjoyed the first one more than the second but they’ll know what it takes to get some enjoyment.”

Meanwhile, Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has called on the players to respond to the challenge which faces them next season – primarily improving their league form. They have won just four and lost 10 of 17 Barclays Premier League matches in 2012. A return of 15 points from a possible 51 sees Dalglish’s side face the prospect of possibly finishing outside the top 10.

“We need to dust ourselves down and we need to respond to the challenge next year,” said Gerrard. “We need to come back. Football is about highs and lows, it’s certainly been a low today. We’ve been fantastic in the cup competitions this year and the players deserve a lot of credit for that. We haven’t been good enough in the league this year and we deserve criticism and we need to take criticism like men. We need to do better. We’re Liverpool Football Club; we’re not seventh or eighth in the league. We’re better than that.”

Gerrard felt his deserved more than they got out of that last-ditch Carroll-inspired charge but admitted they should have started better. “I think on our second half performance we certainly deserved to take Chelsea to extra-time,” the England midfielder said. “But I don’t think we did enough over the 90 minutes to deserve to win the game. I think, given the pressure we put them under second half, we’re a bit disappointed we didn’t get extra-time out of it.”