Newcastle boss Joe Kinnear has backed defender Fabricio Coloccini to recover from his below-par performance in the 5-1 defeat to Liverpool. Kinnear told the Newcastle Evening Chronicle: "He's Mr Reliable normally but he was below par against Liverpool.

"I can understand that. One of the reasons for that is because we didn't have two of the usual back four playing.

"I've already said this season that we need to keep a settled back four.

"Also, Colo's performance was probably to do with the quality of the team we were playing against.

"But for all that, I did not expect us as a team to lose in the manner that we did and we must improve."