Ian Wright now says Newcastle United fans have been overly critical of 30-year-old star in the past

There are few subsets of people as fickle as the common football fan, it's an inescapable fact. We will slate a player one week and praise them as world-class the next and Newcastle United fans are gold medalists in this field.

We aren't digging our fanbase out at all here because we do it too; in fact, we've done exactly that about the very player Ian Wright has been praising.

If anyone has turned our opinion around this season at Newcastle United, it's Jacob Murphy. We used to hammer the winger week in and week out for giving the ball away too often or having no end product.

Now, we're singing his praises every week and writing full opinion pieces about just how good he's been.

We used to cringe when we saw Jacob Murphy's name on the teamsheet

Yet, earlier this season we would recoil in horror when we saw his name on the teamsheet despite the other option, Miguel Almiron, being even worse.

Newcastle still need a right-winger through the door this summer, but the desperation has cooled recently thanks to Jacob Murphy's superb performances. However, he did show against Aston Villa that he's still got those bad games in him - but so did everybody else that day.

Speaking on The Kelly and Wrighty Show, Ian Wright has aimed a minor dig at Newcastle fans for the way they've treated Murphy in the past.

Jacob Murphy's turnaround this season has been phenomenal

Ian Wright points out how much Newcastle fans underestimated Murphy and perhaps didn't give him the credit he deserves.

“Someone like Jacob Murphy, he’s been unfortunate, he was the name who was banded about, people were saying ‘what’s Jacob Murphy doing here, if we could spend money he would be out.’ Look how great he’s played. They do need to go to the next level of player, but for me it’s vitally important that Newcastle get into the top four and progress."

While we can see where Wrighty is coming from, we're sure that even he will agree that the Murphy of old was very worthy of that criticism at the time, but yes, he absolutely deserves all the praise he's getting now after an outrageously good 2025 so far.