Everton captain Phil Neville believes the FA Cup can be their saving grace this season.

After victory over Carlisle United, Neville, starting his first game since September after a serious knee injury, is hoping now for another cup run just like last season when Everton went all the way to Wembley.

He said: "Carlisle were outstanding. It was hard work, but in the end it is about being in the hat for the next round.

"They gave us a fright, hitting the bar when it was level and 3-1 totally flattered us. Our performance was not up to what it has been recently.

"But we are still in the competition. And looking back at our unbelievable cup run last season, we struggled at Macclesfield in the third round but managed a win there.

"It was a similar type of game to this one, and last season we still ended up at Wembley. The aim is to get to the final again. Beforehand when we were warming up on the pitch we could see the re-runs on the big screens of last season's final and the semi-final at Wembley being shown.

"I just felt that we needed some more of that. Last season that cup run was truly inspiring and it galvanised the whole club. Now we want another run like that. We need to really kick on now. There are no excuses. We can see light at the end of the tunnel with injured players coming back and we just need to keep winning games.

"We have a big couple of months coming up in the league, cup and Europe, and if we can come out of that in good shape we can really attack the last half of the season."