GERARD DEULOFEU was a player Aitor Karanka had warned his team all about and Middlesbrough had no answer to his brilliance as Everton sealed a place in the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup.

Karanka once told a 14-year-old Deulofeu that he had all the ability in the world to be an international success story having had him under his wing during his time coaching a Spanish youth team.

But, seven years later, the Boro boss could only look on as Ben Gibson and Fernando Amorebieta were brushed aside inside eight first half minutes as he kept Everton in the hunt to win the League Cup for the first time.

Deulofeu scored the first after a moment of individual brilliance in the 20th minute and he teed up Romelu Lukaku for the crucial second eight minutes later with the sort of wing play Lionel Messi would have been proud of.

It was those two moments of magic from the former Barcelona youngster, who moved to Goodison Park for £4.2m in the summer, which proved the difference as Middlesbrough threatened unsuccessfully to pull themselves back into the tie.

Karanka, who has a trip to Ipswich for his players to focus on on Friday, had feared beforehand that his players were over-confident following October’s penalty shoot-out victory at Manchester United in the previous round.

And the visit of Everton, backed by around 5,000 travelling supporters, proved a step too far for a side whose priority remains facing Roberto Martinez’s side in the Premier League next year.

For 20 minutes Boro had done well to keep Everton, clearly in confident mood, at bay because goalkeeper Tomas Mejias had not even had a save to make.

But the visitors still looked dangerous and Martinez must have sensed a potential weakness down the home side’s left hand side in the absence of the rested George Friend.

Deulofeu hogged the touchline from the outset and it soon became clear why, with Everton taking a comfortable two-goal cushion into the half-time break.

Moments before the young Spaniard had opened the scoring, Middlesbrough had gone close to scoring themselves. In fact they did get the ball in the net, only for referee Roger East to correctly rule it out.

That incident, when Cristhian Stuani had illegally jumped all over goalkeeper Joel Robles before his back turned the ball over the line, had come about from Boro’s first serious attack on the Everton goal.

Stewart Downing was handed the chance to try his luck with a free-kick from 22 yards out after Stuani’s charge towards the visitors’ penalty area was blocked by the over-exuberance of Ramiro Funes Mori’s defending.

It looked an impossible angle to test the keeper from, but Robles justified his inclusion ahead of Tim Howard by racing across goal and diving to his left to turn Downing’s dead-ball behind for a corner.

Middlesbrough, who made six changes to the team which won at Huddersfield, needed that to have gone in because Everton soon made their greater composure in possession count in the final third.

When Deulofeu was picked out deep inside the Middlesbrough half after making a rare switch inside temporarily, the winger turned and charged straight at the men in front of him.

He rounded Gibson with ease, brushed off the challenge of Adam Clayton in the middle and picked his spot by unleashing an unstoppable right-foot drive low of the wet surface and inside Mejias’ bottom right corner.

That got Everton up and running from a scoring point of view and they only had to wait a further eight minutes for the second, with the goalscorer turning orchestrator to torment Boro once more.

Ross Barkley spotted Deulofeu standing on the touchline and picked him out with a fabulous Crossfield pass. The trickster then darted straight for Amorebieta, who was included at left-back as a stand-in for the rested Friend.

Deulofeu carried out not one, two or three stepovers, but six to outfox the experienced Venezuelan before sending over an inviting delivery for Lukaku to rise above Gibson and arch a header inside the far corner of Mejias’ net.

Minutes later the Riverside lit up in moving message of support for Ali Brownlee, the BBC Tees commentator who has been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

Brownlee has commentated on Boro games for 33 years and supporters of both sides help up their mobile phones, shining the light and singing “Ali Brownlee, he’s one of our own” to show they are backing the Boro stalwart.

Middlesbrough, with David Nugent and Albert Adomah among the substitutes, looked dead and buried and incapable of making a cup tie of it at that point, but they did have the best chances before and after the break.

The first was when Robles got down low to deny Stuani’s effort from the edge of the area and the other was when Kike chipped an effort inches wide of the far upright after some neat link-up play with the Uruguayan.

After the restart Robles was forced into another leaping save from Downing just before the hour. There was, though, always a sense that Everton had an extra gear if they needed it.

But Boros’s wastefulness in good areas, notably when Stuani headed Nsue’s centre inches over from six yards out, meant Everton never needed to step it up again because they had already done enough to finish the job.

Tensions increased in the final quarter of an hour after Daniel Ayala caught Deulofeu with an elbow after he had been nutmegged by his compatriot, but the Everton player had the last laugh when he was roundly booed when he was substituted shortly after.

Ultimately there was to be no repeat of the December night 12 years ago when Middlesbrough edged out Everton on penalties en route to League Cup glory.