WATCH: Bizarre moment Jacob Murphy wore cone on his head during Brighton win

There are few phrases more inflammatory to a suffering football fan than 'it's just a game', but those four words carry a lot of weight.

Newcastle United fans are a notoriously passionate bunch, but there are certainly levels. You get fans who will watch the Mags fall to a defeat, and that's their afternoon ruined, others will see their weekend ruined, and then you get those who will be in a stonking mood until the next victory.

What we have to remember, though, regardless of how it affects you, it doesn't affect everybody the same, especially the players.

Most of the players are there purely to do a job. Of course, there are a few who have a love for the club too, so it means a bit more to them, but they still have a job to do, so they can't dwell on defeats or the league position. They have to get themselves ready to go again.

Jacob Murphy doing Jacob Murphy things

During Saturday's game against Brighton, which saw Newcastle end their dismal losing streak, Jacob Murphy got caught up in one of the pitch-side cones, and before taking it off the field back to its rightful place, Murphy, being the person he is, wore the cone like a hat for all of one and a half seconds.

It was a fleeting moment that sums up Murphy's personality, but honestly, you see some of the reactions on social media, and you'd think he'd donned a top hat, tux and cane and performed a rendition of Hello, My Baby.

So many accounts posted a still image of Murphy wearing the cone with captions of "We're 13th mate". 

Not everyone was mad about it, though

Thankfully, there were plenty of other accounts that saw it for what it was - a joke that has absolutely no bearing on the game or the season.

Having said that, there was one post on X that summed it up brilliantly. 

Newcastle went on to win by a comfortable margin, so there will be no need to put Murphy in the stocks in Eldon Square and huck rotten tomatoes at him.

Mind, I'm saying all of this now, if he'd done something like this during one of the recent games where he was playing like it was his first day with legs, I'd maybe have reacted more like the first set of fans. It's all about context. (Conetext?)