STEVEN GERRARD hailed the performance of striker Andy Carroll after Liverpool strolled into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup with a 6-1 thrashing of Brighton at Anfield.

Brighton scored three own goals but Carroll was among the Liverpool players who also got on the scoresheet, along with strike partner Luis Suarez who missed a penalty but responded by heading in a late goal.

With the Carling Cup final on the horizon this week, Liverpool could have been forgiven for having their attentions elsewhere, but Gerrard believes their performance shows they can get better for the rest of the season with all of their top players available.

“It’s always nice to first of all get the win and then to win convincingly,” he said. “In the end we went through the gears and got better and better as the 90 minutes went on and we deserved our goals.

“The important thing was to focus on this game. The Carling Cup final was in our minds because we have a massive game at Wembley next week but we want to go to Wembley again in the FA Cup so today was just as important.”

There was the rare sight of Gerrard, Suarez and Carroll all starting a game together, and Gerrard hopes the end result is a sign of things to come.

“(Carroll) has been getting better and better in training and he was our man of the match today,” he said.

“We believe that the more we play together, the more we’ll click. We’re all good players and good players like playing with other good players. We’re all on the same wavelength now.”

Carroll put the visiting defence under pressure all afternoon, contributing to the early own goal, before he got one of his own just before the hour mark.

“Every goal feels good, but it couldn’t get any better today with the result as well and now we’re through to the next round,” the striker said.

“We haven’t played many games all together but we’ve been playing well in training and we put it into the game today.”

Liverpool will now go on to play Stoke in the next round while Brighton must regroup in their push for the npower Championship play-offs.

Manager Gus Poyet said: “It’s difficult to analyse because I think it was always a matter of holding them and making sure we didn’t concede any silly goals.

“For long periods in the first half I think we were in the game, but the second goal changed it.

“If we had gone to half-time at 1-1 the message from the opposition changing room would have been very different, but then in the second half three or four of the goals were comic.

“You know you’re going to have to defend, but I think we scored three own goals. I don’t remember the last time that happened. I think we were naive, but welcome to the world of the Premiership.

“People think we are ready for the Premiership but we are not. If you want to one day get to the Premiership as a team or as a player you need to learn. The quality, the strength, the power the players have got is amazing. This is a top six team, but I don’t think anyone likes to go to places in the top six and finish the game 6-1.”