Simon Mignolet believes Liverpool's Capital One Cup draw against Chelsea demonstrated the strides that the team have made in recent weeks.

Liverpool matched Chelsea man for man on Tuesday, and really should have won the game with a flurry of chances in the second half, but drew 1-1 after Raheem Sterling equalised. 

Mignolet himself had little to do after being unable to keep out Eden Hazard's early penalty, however showered praise on his teammates performance.

"In big games you always want to put in big performances, and we did that against Chelsea. We made it very difficult for Chelsea, who have been in top form. There was only one team who deserved to win and that was us," the Belgian told the Liverpool Echo.

"We played some great football, created alot of chances and the only thing that was missing was a few more goals. That performance will give everyone a boost. We showed how much we have improved but we can't afford to get carried away."

Despite a good performance from the Reds, the odds remain stacked against them due to Chelsea's sublime home record. Mignolet however, was upbeat about Liverpool's chances.

"Hopefully we can get the right result at Stamford Bridge and get ourselves into the final. We believe we can go there and get the result we want.

"It's not important who are the favourites now. We have to look at ourselves. We just need to put in a similar performance to this one. Tuesday will be a different game and we have to keep doing the same things."

Mignolet faced his Belgium colleague Thibaut Courtois in the game, with Courtois making a number of stunning saves leading to him being chosen as the man of the match. A stunning save to deny Adam Lallana was the pick of these, with the Belgium number one diving to his right to stop Lallana forcing Liverpool ahead aftr the 79th minute. Mignolet felt that Courtois performance exemplified how dominant Livepool were on the night.

"He's a very good shot-stopper and he showed that. The fact he had so much to do shows that we were the better side. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get te second goal that we deserved. We did well after going behind and it was a special goal from Raheem [Sterling]. He's on form again and hopefully will keep doing that for us.

"Now we will think about the FA Cup tie against Bolton. That's on our minds before the second leg. We want to get into the next round of that one and then we will focus on Chelsea."