Roy Hodgson saluted the 'outstanding' impact of Steven Gerrard after the skipper came off the bench to fire home a second-half hat-trick in the 3-1 Europa League win over Napoli on Thursday night.
The Reds' hopes of strengthening their place at the summit of Group K had looked to be in danger after Ezequiel Lavezzi had given the Italians the advantage with a smart finish on 28 minutes.
However, the half-time introduction of Gerrard inspired a revival, leaving Hodgson delighted with the No.8's contribution.
He told his post-match press conference: "He was outstanding. I think that in the first half we hadn't played that badly. I thought we were a bit unlucky to be a goal down at half-time to an error that was punished.
"But certainly in the second half his entry onto the field was a catalyst. It galvanised the crowd and the team. The way he scored the first goal epitomises the energy and spirit the team showed in the second half.
"I'm delighted we got a reward for it but we do owe a big debt of gratitude to him. But I'm sure he'd be the first to join me in saying that it was a good team performance in the second half as well.
"Even though he will get the plaudits, he'll agree that the whole team played well after the break and we deserved to win the game."
He added: "I thought tonight was a real leader's performance. That goal that got us the equaliser wasn't a pretty goal; it was a captain's goal, one of a guy who wanted to get his team back into a match and who was determined to get the ball into the net. That is certainly appreciated by me and my staff as well as the crowd."
Asked if he would have preferred to have rested Gerrard for the clash rather than introduce him in place of Milan Jovanovic at the interval, Hodgson added: "I wanted to win the game. At half-time I felt the best chance we had of winning the game was to bring him on. I suppose had we been two or three up at half-time it would have been nice to wrap him up in cotton wool.
"But Steven likes to play. He's like Jamie Carragher and Pepe Reina - they want to play. They don't seek rest periods. They understand what I'm trying to do but they don't seek it themselves. There's never any problem if I want to put them on. They are the first to put their hand up and say 'if you need me, I'm there', which is great."
The victory over Napoli means Liverpool have now notched up three wins on the spin.
Hodgson admits he is delighted his team have got their season back on track but has warned of over-confidence ahead of a crunch meeting with Chelsea on Sunday.
"Well we've got to be careful," he said. "We play Chelsea next and that's a very tough game. If I say yes and we lose then I look like a mug and I don't want to do that.
"The longer we work together the happier I am with the way the team looks on the field. But there's still work to do. Everyone knows that; the players and the people I work with. But certainly it's nice to have three straight victories - you don't get that too often at this level of football. It would be nice to make it four.
"To do well in a league like we are playing in, you need a consistency in your performance and we need to do that week after week."
The boss was also quizzed about the fitness of David Ngog after the striker sustained a knock to his shin late on.
Hodgson added: "We are assessing it. We didn't take him off because of the knock on the shin, we took him off because of a little bit of cramp. He worked very hard during the game. But it was a bad challenge. I can only hope he'll be okay for Sunday because quite frankly we are a little bit light in the forward department.
"If we lose him we don't have the same quality of option to play two up front or replace Fernando Torres if that was to be necessary in the game."
