Wright-Phillips catches Capello's eye with a starring role in the hard-fought win over Everton

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As the new England boss doubtless savoured this rip-roaring Carling Cup semi-final on his first big footballing night out in the capital, Wright-Phillips, in three separate guises as creator, labourer then predator, delivered an all-round performance which Avram Grant reckoned was his finest in Chelsea blue.

While he completed his grand evening in the 92nd minute by soaring so far above his international colleague Joleon Lescott that the bemused Everton defender ended up being pressured enough to nod past his own keeper and gift Chelsea the priceless advantage from this first leg, you couldn't help but reflect on how these two combatants must have felt with an Italian VIP's designer specs trained on them.

Lescott had been solid until that last critical moment when Michael Ballack hooked the ball across the Everton box and, despite his keeper Tim Howard clearly shouting "away", the defender stood rooted like a statue as the little winger sprung above him.

Poor old Lescott. You're out there, desperately trying to prove your credentials to the new England boss and your substantial 6ft 2in frame being outmuscled in aerial combat by a 5ft 6in whippet winger. Everton boss David Moyes wondered lamely if SWP had fouled Lescott. No, this was just a dismal error.

So down the field Lescott rampaged for one last chance to redeem himself. Found in space in the box, it looked for all the world as if he was going to find a second equaliser for his team but his first touch let him down badly and Hilario was able to smother his shot.

Cue the sort of arm-pumping celebrations from Grant which were once the preserve of Jose Mourinho. As he's usually about as demonstrative as a Madame Tussaud's exhibit, this last gasp win, completed by 10 men following Jon Obi Mikel's 55th minute sending off, maybe meant more to him than any other of his side's 18 wins in his four-month reign.

Not only did it put Chelsea in pole position for a third Carling Cup final appearance in four years as they head off for a still awkward return at Goodison in a fortnight but here was the most convincing evidence yet to illustrate how the depth of the resilience and spirit at the club has not diminished one jot since the departure of you know who.

Indeed, it had the uncanny resemblance to this time last year when Mourinho, while being a serial moaner about his side's injury woes, kept them battling along on four competition fronts.

Only Grant is a million times less theatrical, quietly shrugging: "With so many players missing, what with the African Nations Cup, suspensions and with players coming back after injury, I'm more than proud to see them give everything they can, never giving up."

His interrogators demanded to know his feelings about Mikel's fourth dismissal for Chelsea in 15 months, this time for a sliding, studs-up challenge on Phil Neville, but Grant wasn't having it, adamant that this was a night only to celebrate, not to berate or debate a single aberration.

All Grant would venture was that if Mikel's challenge was worth a red, then so were some perpetrated by Everton players already on a yellow card.

Presumably, he was thinking of referee Peter Walton's spectacular cop out when he ought to have shown Neville a second yellow after a crude 79th minute foul on Florent Malouda.

Mikel's challenge, reckless as it was, may not have merited a red but with in the current climate of refs clamping down on two-footed lunges, such an ugly one-footed version was bound to make them twitchy.

Grant's countenance, ignoring the bereft Nigerian as he trooped off, suggested he realises this gifted lad's poor discipline must be urgently addressed when he returns from Ghana.

For he could have cost Chelsea very dear. Until his dismissal, their flowing dominance, rewarded by Wright-Phillips's superb curled goal but undermined by Claudio Pizarro's impotency up front - Nicolas Anelka's arrival surely can't come too soon for Grant - had suggested only one winner.

Within 15 minutes of the sending off, though, Yakubu had equalised with a blistering shot on the turn - capitalising after what appeared a dubious free kick awarded to Everton - and James McFadden had hit the post.

"We had some real heroes over the holidays... Hilario, Alex, Kalou," John Terry had noted in his programme column.

Now the injured captain could recognise another from the bench as Wright-Phillips, who's never exactly prospered in the Grant regime, began in an advanced central midfield role, moved to the right flank in the enforced reshuffle following the sending off and was given the lone striker's role once the gun-shy Pizarro was removed.

In each position he shone, capped by one sublime moment on the hour when he tracked back, won a sliding tackle, then split open the Everton defence with an exquisite through ball to Pizarro.

To one man up in the gods on this freezing, blustery night, it must have been so warming. For if Wright-Phillips ever did find that consistency of excellence to match the unquestioned talent, why would those designer specs ever need to gaze elsewhere?