Owls keen to re-sign Murphy

SHEFFIELD Wednesday manager Garry Monk has confirmed he would like to re-sign Jacob Murphy next season.

In a fairly mediocre season for the Hillsborough club, the Newcastle United loanee was one of the few bright spots, scoring nine times in total, including four in the final five games of the season.

The Owls confirmed earlier today that Murphy was one of four loanees to return to their parent clubs amid uncertainty surrounding the club’s future.

Sheffield Wednesday were hit with a misconduct charge last November. Their legal battle with the EFL has been heard by an independent disciplinary commission. If Wednesday are found guilty of the charge, they could face a potential points deduction.

Nonetheless, Monk, who has come under fire from certain sections of the club’s support, would like to be reunited with Murphy next season.

“I’ve been pleased with him,” Monk told our sister title Yorkshire Live.

“I think his performance levels have been much more consistent.

“I think there is still a bit of roughness and rawness to him in certain situations but I think his attitude towards the work has been fantastic and I have really enjoyed working with him.

“I’ve seen the improvement in him and that is what we want to see. We are looking for that attitude. We’ll see [if he can come back]. The work begins in terms of finding out what we can and can’t do and getting things across the line.

“It is going to be a quick turnaround. We have got half the time that we would normally have and probably double the work.”

Murphy has one year remaining on his deal at Newcastle and has failed to deliver on the promise he showed at Norwich that convinced the Magpies to sign him for £12m in the summer of 2017.

After 18 months where the former England under-21 international struggled for gametime, he has since taken in loan spells with West Brom and Sheffield Wednesday and The Chronicle revealed back in January that he is likely to be part of a summer clear-out on Tyneside.

Murphy’s representative Josh Moralee told Yorkshire Live last month that Sheffield Wednesday were in the “box seat” to sign him in the summer.