Newcastle United boss Alan Pardew felt Cheick Tiote was back to his best against Liverpool.
Tiote produced his best individual display for some time.
Pardew said: "It was as good as I have ever seen from Cheick. I decided to give him the armband on Thursday.
"If you take Steven Gerrard out of Liverpool's team, that's what losing Coloccini is to us, it's a big, big blow.
"I thought we needed someone to replace him who has the same kind of instincts, and that is to lead from performance. Coloccini leads from performance at this club and Cheick needed to do that and I thought he was absolutely brilliant.
"I know Steven Gerrard won man of the match and I am not going to argue with that, but in my eyes, I thought Cheick just shaded it in terms of everything else he had to do."
