Joleon Lescott makes apology to fans for Everton's Carling Cup exit

It was Everton's first charge to the last four of any knockout competition since their 1995 FA Cup final win - their last silverware to date - and help inspire an impressive run in the UEFA Cup and fifth place Premier League finish with their highest points total since England's top flight was restructured.

However, if Everton are eliminated from a second cup competition in eight days against Standard Liege on Thursday then this season's chances for bringing a first trophy of David Moyes's reign could already be looking bleak.

Lescott, whose own form has been questioned in recent weeks after a couple of years of rapid progress, admits that Everton will have to improve on their lacklustre display against a Blackburn side shorn of several regulars.

He said: "It was a terrible performance by us, especially first half. I think when we had nothing to lose in the second half we pushed on a bit more. But still there's no excuses, we're weren't good enough.

"We expected to come to Blackburn, do well and obviously win the game - but we didn't do that. We can only apologise to the fans who travelled a long way to come and showed great support."

Lescott made a dream derby debut just a month into his Everton career in September 2006 with a 3-0 win at Goodison which was followed by a 0-0 draw at Anfield the following February.

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However, he and his team-mates suffered a double defeat in last season's encounters - 2-1 in controversial fashion at Goodison and 1-0 at Anfield in a loss that was more emphatic than the scoreline suggests.

But Lescott believes that whatever Everton had done at Blackburn would not have made any impact on tomorrow's game.

He said: "No matter how we played, we wouldn't have taken that into Saturday.

"It's a derby, so form goes out the window.

"It's a massive game for us now and we want to win it for the fans.

"As a team collectively we weren't good enough (at Blackburn), we didn't close the ball down, at the back we gave them opportunities to turn on the ball, we just didn't play as a team.

"If we're not playing well we normally close teams down and get in their faces, but we didn't do that today and with a team like Blackburn you can't afford to give them chances."