Tic Tacs or the footy? Vent your spleen | Alyson Rudd | Match report |

ITV's executive chairman will make a personal apology live on the lunchtime news today for an "inexcusable" advert break which caused millions of viewers to miss Everton's 118th-minute winning goal in the Merseyside derby.

Michael Grade was due to repeat on air a written statement issued this morning, in a apology that ITV insiders said will be "heartfelt", after a glitch caused a Tic Tacs advert to be played at the same time as teenager Dan Gosling struck the winning goal.

Football fans were left enraged by the break - and have complained in their droves of their frustration at hanging on through a dull first 118 minutes only to have the climax of the evening ruined.

The broadcaster has been deluged with "hundreds" of complaints after the mistake, which is the latest in a series of problems to afflict ITV's FA Cup coverage. Coverage of the second round Histon-Leeds tie was marred by rain which made its pictures hardly visible, the transmission of swearing from Leeds fans, and dressing room footage of a naked Histon player.

"I’d like to apologise to all our viewers who were affected by last night’s unprecedented technical error," Mr Grade said. "As a football fan myself I was glued to the match and was as disappointed as anyone to miss the goal.

"We have years of experience in dealing with the changes in ad break patterns when games go into extra time and sometimes penalties - this we have done faultlessly through the Champions League, World Cup and European Championships.

"Last night’s glitch was inexcusable and we are awaiting the results of our technical inquiry so we can put in place stringent and immediate procedures to address this."

Mr Grade said that the problem occurred at the transmission centre, and was not the responsibility of the ITV Sport production team.

It is understood that an automated system for broadcasting adverts - which should only be used on "regular schedule" nights - kicked in as the game continued in extra time. The system is not designed for live events such as football games which can over-run and delay the schedule.

The problem was dealt with just in time for some viewers in northern England, including those in Liverpool, to see the winning strike being scored - but all those watching south of the Midlands were only returned to the action in time for the goal celebrations.

As well as opening the way to a butt of jokes aimed at ITV by amused observers, it could also damage its credibility as a serious football station at a time when competitiveness between the channels over rights - including the BBC, Sky and Setanta - has reached unprecedented levels.

Fans today deluged The Times' football blog, The Game, to complain about ITV's football coverage - with more than a few seeing the mishap as highly amusing.

One viewer, Paul, wrote: "ITV's coverage of all football is just awful. The team is rubbish, the 'experts' just state the obvious, even the set looks pathetic."

Another, by Karl, said: "A shocking, shocking display yet again from ITV. On top of Andy Townsend's analysis (he doesn't provide any), for them to not even show the game in the last minutes of extra time sums up their sporting prowess."

A poster called JP wrote: "Sky seem to manage perfectly well and provide the best football coverage around. Setanta are OK, BBC are good (no ads helps, but there's some genuine insight from Hansen, etc and the added bonus of Martin O'Neill at the big tournaments). ITV has a useless anchor (Steve Ryder should stick to F1), pointless 'experts', and their only salvation comes from the commentators. Tydesley and Beglin - transfer to Sky asap!"

Of the supporters which saw the funny side, Joseph wrote: "As the match was so so boring I fell asleep in extra time....luckily the change of tone due to the tic tacs commercial woke me up, in a daze I thought it had gone to penalties. It had not, coverage went back and I saw the winning goal. Had it not been to ITV I probably would have woken up on the sofa at 2am not knowing what had happened!"

Another, a fan calling himself Dizzle, wrote: "Yeah, this was pretty bad by ITV but I don't think you can compare it with having a Cillit Bang commercial during the moon landing..."

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010