No way Jose van argue over this goal - Garcia

Luis Garcia laughed loud and long because he had scored a goal against Chelsea that Jose Mourinho could not claim had not crossed the line.

The little Spaniard, who has a habit of scoring in high-profile games for Liverpool, memorably netted a winner against Chelsea last season in the Champions League semi-final that the Stamford Bridge boss to this day insists did not go over the line.

Now the former Barcelona man has hit Mourinho where it hurts again with a stunning goal that proved to be the eventual winner in the FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford.

A grinning Luis Garcia said: “All I can say is there was no doubt that one was over the line, for sure.

“It has been a little disappointing that the issue of that goal keeps coming up, but I have not let it bother me. Now I’ve got another against Chelsea.”

The 27-year-old missed several easier chances before his second-half cracker, and he said: “We knew it would be a really tough, it is always like that against Chelsea. But we are in the final and we aim to win another important trophy.

“I was delighted with the finish for the goal I scored, and it was important because I had missed a few chances before that.

“All the games we have with Chelsea are close, we lost once 4-1, but the rest are always close and difficult. It all comes down to scoring when the chances come.

“I must admit when Joe Cole had that chance and missed, it reminded me of last season in the Champions League semi-final when (Eidur) Gudjohnsen missed one very late in that match.”

Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard insists that he will be happy to forgive Garcia for missing sitters as long as he keeps bagging crackers like the one that eventually beat Chelsea.

Gerrard, who also feels it is about time that Chelsea start “respecting” Liverpool more, led his side to a famous victory at Old Trafford in which the Anfield midfield of himself, Xabi Alonso and Mohamed Sissoko out-played Chelsea’s trio of Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Claude Makelele.

Gerrard is well aware that Garcia has a reputation for scoring vital big match goals, like those against Chelsea and Juventus in last season’s Champions League glory run and also a Merseyside derby strike against Everton.

He missed two sitters at Old Trafford, but then launched a 30-yarder past Carlo Cudicini to put Liverpool 2-0 ahead and gave them the platform to survive the West Londoners late siege.

Gerrard said: “The funny thing about Luis is that he misses the easy ones and then scores from 30 yards.

“But that doesn’t bother me, not as long as he keeps scoring goals like he did in this semi-final.

“He has scored a lot of great goals for us in very important matches, I can put up with that.”

But Gerrard warned: “This job isn’t done yet. We’ve another massive game to play on May 13 and we’ve got to go and win this Cup now. It’s going to be another tough game but if we perform as we can then we can win it.

“We deserved our victory over Chelsea. We were the better side in the first half, in fact we were better for the first hour.

“Then the onslaught came and we were expecting it because they are a class side. It was disappointing to concede a goal because that made the job even harder, but we hung in there.

“We were all feeling it at the end when we went into added time but the rallying call came from Jamie Carragher that we all had to stick together, and that’s what we did.”