Everton 1-2 Chelsea (aet) - Sturridge wins it in extra time for battling visitors

When Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas celebrated at the end of this match as if he had won the final, you understood the extent of the tense drama that seems almost a recurring theme for his team.

It was the Carling Cup tie that had everything...missed penalties, red cards, missed chances and the usual controversy that surrounds the London club, even if it wasn't quite at the level of their bruising weekend encounter with QPR.

It left Villas-Boas punching the air, and grinning broadly afterwards, the win enough to even allow him a smile about the battle of Loftus Road as he conceded: "I have no complaints about the sending off....this time!"

He was, he insisted, proud of the response of his players after the weekend controversy. "There was so much fall-out from that game, so to show the resilience and character we did here was an incredible sign for us," he proudly asserted.

Eventually, they were the last team standing after slugging it out over 120 tortuous minutes with Everton, to win - or more accurately survive - after an excruciating extra time period, thanks to substitute Daniel Sturridge's strike four minutes from an increasingly likely penalty shoot out.

They had Royston Drenthe to thank, ultimately, for their victory, even if they always looked the stronger side. Everton's only real chance of progressing through to the quarter final came when the visitors were reduced to 10 men early in the second half after keeper Ross Turnbull's dismissal.

But Drenthe threw away that advantage, and that glorious opportunity for another Goodison upset, when he foolishly also got himself sent off in extra time for the second of two stupid yellow cards.

It was, his manager David Moyes admitted, a painfully costly mistake. "That sending off probably turned it because when we were 11 v 10 we were always in control, and the worse we would have got was a penalty shoot out."

Everton should have won in normal time after Turnbull saw red, and played with passion as they searched for the winner, but in extra time they ran out of steam, and when Drenthe trudged off, their chance was gone.

If there was always drama and tension in this tie, then there wasn't true quality often enough, with only Nicolas Anelka and Sturridge when he appeared as a second half sub providing anything approaching a match-winning impetus.

If Sturridge was the ultimate hero, when he was alert enough after 116 gruelling minutes to turn home a rebound when Florent Malouda's shot was beaten into his path, then the night was a tale of two keepers...or rather three, given the contribution from Petr Cech when he came on.

There was a certain symmetry in much of the game, with a horrendous mistake from home keeper Jan Mucha matched by a more unfortunate one from his opposite number Turnbull, to provide pivotal moments in the tie.

Mucha has played only five times for Everton, and his experience at this level was evident, when he inexplicably allowed a tame shot from Salomon Kalou from the edge of his box to slip through his grasp and into the net when it barely had the power to get there under its own steam.

That came on 39 minutes, and by then Chelsea could have been home and dry but for a bad penalty miss from the otherwise excellent Anelka, when he shot wide of the goal following John Heitinga's poor challenge on Josh McEachran.

Chelsea were dominant to that point, with only Louis Saha troubling Turnbull, something he did rather more significantly on 58 minutes when he capitalised on a mistake by David Luiz, and was hauled down.

From the spot kick though, Cech - rushed onto the pitch to face it - saved well from Leighton Baines, and saved even better from the follow up, and when Tim Cahill steered a resulting header wide, you worried for Everton.

They rallied though, and with six minutes remaining, produced a glorious leveller, when sub Seamus Coleman escaped down the right to send over a fine cross that Saha drilled in at the near post.

Drenthe could have won the game for his side in the dying minutes, but instead his naivety lost it for them, and with it an opportunity to head towards Wembley.