Anfield rock is final barrier

Carragher remains a menace to Chelsea next week, not just because of the quality of his defending but because of his totemic value. He is the Bootle boy made good, the downto-earth hero who wouldn't dream about the leaving of Liverpool even when a more lauded local lad like Gerrard would. Stevie G may be captain but you sense Carragher is now the heartbeat.

Asked to pay tribute to his man of the match, manager Rafael Benitez was careful to avoid doing so, faithful to his belief that you should never single out a lone wolf when you hunt in a pack. Yet, like Jose Mourinho, he has quickly recognised the importance to the club's health of having a couple of local heroes to rally around.

On a night when Frank Lampard looked a mite weary, Terry was as tirelessly splendid as ever in a match which showcased an excellence in defensive organisation and execution which we have rarely witnessed from English clubs in recent years and which has to be a tribute to two masterful overseas coaches.

In the second half, watching JT trying to charge through from the back or scolding himself for not quite connecting with a match-winning header from a corner, it felt like he was the only man in the blue ranks really believing in his ability to take the match by the scruff of the neck.

Yet Carragher now seems made of the same inspirational stuff. In defence, he was only caught napping once last night, on the quarter hour, when Drogba was able to muscle past, only to finish tamely with a left-foot strike which screwed wide. After that typically frustrating moment from the unpredictable one, Carragher and Sami Hyypia strangled the life out of Drogba.

Yet Gerrard also noted how confidenceand experience these days has enabled Carragher to make enterprising forays forward too. "He's added so much to his game this year and I think his progress has been because he's been able to play in his preferred role on a consistent basis."

This, of course, is Benitez's triumph. It took him no time to recognise that Carragher's supposed greatest quality, his versatility, was perhaps a curse.

He put him back in the position Carragher had felt most comfortable in as a 16-year-old. "When he was younger, Carra had to play in two or three different positions but for me, he's a centre-half," concurred Gerrard.

"I think managers have always had faith in him but, sometimes, versatility can hold you back. The reason he didn't play centre-half was because of Sami and Stephane (Henchoz) creating a partnership which everyone was saying was the best in England. But now he's made that position his own and I'm sure it will be for the next five or six years. He was tremendous out there." And Liverpool is counting on him being even more tremendous next week. Chelsea have scored in each of their Champions League awaydays this season and have no reason to believe the sequence won't continue at Anfield.

Yet Carragher, whose brilliant form seems to have helped rejuvenate the 31-year-old Hyypia too, presided over a back four which made Chelsea eventually look as clueless up front as we have seen all season.

As Carragher slipped away quietly like someone who still couldn't quite credit how he appears to have lost the 'unsung' bit of his 'unsung hero' tag, he left team-mates to talk up the "unbelievable" wall of sound that Chelsea will walk into next Tuesday.

He did not need to say anything; his roaring, passionate display, one of the performances of the season, had already told simply enough of the fire Mourinho's men will have to douse at Anfield.