LONDON: Kenny Dalglish said he thought his players were “excellent” in the last halfhour of their FA Cup Final defeat by Chelsea at Wembley but could never have expected that to be enough writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Liverpool’s manager added: “A game lasts 90 minutes and when you’re playing a team of the quality of Chelsea you can’t give them a two-goal start and expect to get something out of the game. Credit to the lads but we gave ourselves too much to do.”

Chelsea, he thought, had a decisive advantage in terms of experience which prevented Liverpool following up their League Cup Final triumph earlier this spring.

He said: “Chelsea know how to win these sorts of games. They also know you always need a bit of fortune to win games and maybe they had it here but if you’re the better team for an hour you’re disappointed if you don’t go on to win.

“Maybe we were a wee bit nervous. Chelsea’s are thoroughbreds and have been over the course before us. But the way we finished should give us confidence that we are better than we showed early on.

“We’ve been here twice in cup finals this season and everybody enjoyed the first one better than this one so they know what it takes to get themselves a bit of enjoyment.”

The upset for Liverpool was in seeing Andy Carroll denied by the officials what would have been an equaliser when his header was pushed against the underside of the bar by Chelsea keeper Petr Cech.

Dalglish said: “Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t and if the officials have got it right then I hope they get the credit they deserve.”

Carroll thought the ball was over the line. He said: “I thought it was over the line. I thought it hit the other side of the bar. We were unlucky. We had a few chances but we couldn’t put them away. It wasn’t to be.”

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