'Memories that will always stay with me' Player of the Year Phil Jagielka will miss the FA Cup final, but played as big a part as anyone in getting Everton there - here he talks Nick Smith through the thrilling route to the final.

Byline: Nick Smith

MACCLESFIELD TOWN 0 EVERTON 1 ( Osman 43) W E turned up at Macclesfield and they were the smallest changing rooms ever - we ended up getting changed at the hotel.

The pitch was half frozen and it was just a normal January Cup game, all set up for a shock result.

And because of that, I could even sense a little bit of nerves in our side because we went out at the same stage at home to Oldham last year.

But we played okay, not particularly well as they were really up for it. But thankfully Ossie pulled out a fantastic wonder goal and we saw the game out.

MACCLESFIELD: Brain, Reid, Walker, Morgan, Hessey, Bell (Yeo 78), Nat Brown, Dunfield, Jennings (Thomas 70), Evans (Rooney 89), Gritton.

EVERTON: Howard, Hibbert, Lescott, Jagielka, Baines, Osman, Neville, Arteta, Pienaar (Gosling 89), Anichebe, Cahill.

ATTENDANCE: 6,008.

THIRD ROUND

LIVERPOOL 1 (Gerrard 54) EVERTON 1 (Lescott 27) REPLAY: EVERTON 1 ( Gosling 120) LIVERPOOL 0 I WAS sitting watching the draw and smiling to myself when Liverpool were the first name out and I thought 'okay, what's our number?' Then 'bang!' it came out.

But we had a hectic month with two great results against them and played them in the league as well so it felt like we were playing them in every game at that point.

Everyone is going to remember Dan Gosling's goal but I think you've got to remember the goal we scored in the first game as well, that was just as important.

That whole month was so mad, looking back I'm not sure which way round it was now.

Was it Tim Cahill's header to equalise at the end of the FOURTH ROUND first game? No? Right, it must have been Joleon Lescott's header at the Kop End in the first game then! Either way, that goal was just as important as Dan's goal - those six deflections that won him goal of the season! But you can't take that away from him because it means such a hell of a lot to the fans to get one over on them in the Cup and we thought we might get a nice easy draw next.

But the confidence went up because people didn't expect us to be in the competition and there we were knocking out Liverpool.

FIRST GAME: LIVERPOOL: Reina, Arbeloa, Skrtel, Carragher, Dossena, Kuyt, Alonso, Mascherano, Babel (Riera 75), Gerrard,Torres.

EVERTON: Howard, Hibbert, Jagielka , Lescott, Baines, Anichebe (Gosling 71), Castillo (Rodwell 76 ), Neville, Osman, Pienaar, Cahill.

ATTENDANCE: 43,254.

REPLAY: EVERTON: Howard, Hibbert, Jagielka, Lescott, Baines, Osman, Fellaini (Gosling 52), Neville (Van der Meyde 106), Arteta, Pienaar (Rodwell 60) Cahill.

LIVERPOOL: Reina, Dossena, Carragher, Skrtel, Arbeloa, Kuyt, Alonso, Gerrard (Benayoun 16), Lucas, Riera (Mascherano 80),Torres (Babel 101).

SENT OFF: Lucas 76.

ATTENDANCE: 37,918..

SEMI-FINAL EVERTON 0 MANCHESTER UNITED 0 ( aet; Everton win 4- 2 on penalties) T HERE was never going to be an easy draw. Maybe the easiest draw you could have hoped for was Hull or Arsenal and hope Hull could knock them out but as it was we picked out the Premier League and European champions.

But thankfully on the day, it went from being the hardest draw we could have got to the easiest because they were chasing other things and the team he ended up putting out -well it was still worth about pounds 100million - but compared to the team he could have put out we were relieved.

It was quite a clever tactic in a way because it put the pressure back on us, from being massive underdogs to being favourites.

We were workmanlike, we didn't create much but neither did they and thankfully we had a great goalkeeper in the penalty shoot-out and some good penalty takers too.

I've never, ever wanted to take penalties but I said I would take them and try my best - I look back at the Fiorentina one and have no regrets because it was a good penalty. This time I had a thought process and it worked. I knew where I was going, I scored five out of five in training building up to it so I knew exactly what I was doing - so if the keeper dived that way and saved it there was nothing more I could do.

I went quite numb and unfortunately a week later my season ended.

But the Cup run has been brilliant. It will always stay with me and hopefully I'll have a great view of one more special day.

MAN UTD: Foster, Rafael Da Silva, Ferdinand, Vidic, Fabio Da Silva (Evra 63), Welbeck, Gibson, Anderson, Park (Scholes 67), Tevez, Macheda (Berbatov 91).

EVERTON: Howard, Hibbert, Jagielka, Lescott, Baines, Osman, Neville, Fellaini (Vaughan 102), Pienaar, Cahill, Saha (Rodwell 70).

ATTENDANCE: 88,141.

Everton celebrate their shoot-out win and (right) Jagielka embraces James Vaughan after his penalty heroics

FIFTH ROUND EVERTON 3 ( Rodwell 2, Arteta 24p, Cahill 76) ASTON VILLA 1 ( Milner 8p) P ROBABLY the best performance of the run, we played fantastic against Villa. We gave a stupid penalty away but other than that we absolutely dominated the game.

The fact that we had beaten another team who were above us in the league - and had beaten them well - only gave us even more belief, especially as we were in the quarterfinals.

EVERTON: Howard, Hibbert, Jagielka, Lescott, Baines, Gosling, Neville, Arteta, Rodwell, Cahill, Anichebe (Yobo 88).

ASTON VILLA: Friedel, Gardner, Knight, Davies, Luke Young, Milner, Sidwell (Delfouneso 83 ), Petrov, Ashley Young, Agbonlahor, Carew.

ATTENDANCE: 35,439..

SIXTH ROUND EVERTON 2 ( Fellaini 50, Saha 56) MIDDLESBROUGH 1 ( Wheater 44) T HERE were still a lot of Premier League teams left so after previous results, we were ready for whoever was thrown at us.

But Middlesbrough gave us a bit of a problem because after not really being expected to go through in the previous two rounds we were suddenly massive favourites.

It did hinder us a little bit. I said in the papers before the game that it would be a hard one because if weren't winning 2-0at half-time people would see that as a bad scoreline.

So losing 1-0 at half-time after playing really poorly just made it worse. But thankfully we turned it on for 15 minutes and showed what a good team we are and that was all it took. We blitzed them and went 2- 1 up and saw the game out.

EVERTON: Howard, Neville, Yobo, Jagielka, Lescott, Pienaar (Gosling 89), Rodwell (Saha 46), Osman, Baines, Fellaini, Cahill.

MIDDLESBROUGH: Jones, Hoyte, Huth, Wheater, Pogatetz, O'Neil, Arca, Bates (Adam Johnson 72), Downing, Tuncay, Aliadiere (Emnes 68).

ATTENDANCE: 37,856..

CAPTION(S):

Everton players pile in to celebrate the extra time winner in the derby Gosling blasts in the goal that sunk Liverpool Jack Rodwell gives Everton the lead against Aston Villa Saha secures a semi-final spot