THERE’S nothing football fans love more than a homegrown academy product made good. Right? Well, yes. To a point. But as the North-East’s three biggest teams can all attest, once those homegrown talents make it, they’re immediately held to higher standards than the players around them. And if there’s even a suggestion of their form beginning to dip, those same fans who initially championed them don’t need a second invitation to get on their back.

I got thinking about all of that this weekend in relation to Sean Longstaff, the boyhood Newcastle supporter who is living out his dream playing for his hometown club in the Premier League, but who is anything but a fans’ favourite if the social media reaction to reports singing his praises over the weekend are to be taken as a gauge of genuine supporter sentiment.

Newcastle have won seven games in all competitions this season, and Longstaff has started all seven of them. He was excellent as the Magpies beat Arsenal on Saturday, working tirelessly to successfully shut down the Gunners’ creative assets. Eddie Howe has been striving to get the right midfield balance this season, and as the Newcastle boss stated after Saturday’s game, Longstaff provides something completely different to the rest of the midfielders in the squad.

He's also a dyed-in-the-wool black-and-white, still pinching himself at the realisation that he is playing for the club he loves. So, you’d think he’d be universally adored by his fellow supporters. Not exactly. “Terrible in possession,” was a reply to a post on X containing my report in which I praised Longstaff’s performance against Arsenal. “He’s Championship level,” said another account. “He’s nothing more than an okay squad player at best,” said another. And that’s before we get to the numerous comments containing words that are best left unpublished in a family newspaper.

Clearly, that’s only a snapshot of supporters’ views, and I readily concede it’s unlikely to be representative of the match-going crowd at St James’ Park. Nevertheless, it’s a groundswell of opinion that Longstaff is clearly aware of. “Some people think I should play - some people think I should be nowhere near it and can’t play a two-yard pass,” he said, in a post-match interview.

No one is saying support for a player should be unconditional, but it definitely feels like Longstaff is being judged differently to those around him. Sandro Tonali didn’t kick a ball for ten months because of a self-inflicted mistake, yet he became a cult hero, loved seemingly unconditionally. But then he’s a chiselled Italian international with an air of mystery and intrigue around him and a penchant for pinpoint 50-yard passes. Longstaff is a gangly kid from North Shields who runs around tackling people, so while he was diligently giving his all as a consummate professional while Tonali was serving his ten-month betting ban, his stock went down rather than up as Newcastle missed out on European qualification.

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This isn’t just a Newcastle thing, though. Take Dan Neil at Sunderland. Another boyhood fan of the club he is now playing for, in fact a former season-ticket holder at the Stadium of Light. Neil, at 22, is widely regarded as one of the most exciting midfield prospects in the Championship. This season, he’s also Sunderland’s captain, an honour he regards as one of the highest that could ever be bestowed on him. Surely, he’s guaranteed to be a favourite of the fans?

Well, he certainly wasn’t after he conceded a decisive late penalty at Watford earlier this season. There’d already been mutterings, again largely on social media, about Neil’s performance levels in the early weeks of the campaign, and they exploded into a series of vitriolic comments after his error cost Sunderland a draw at Vicarage Road.

Like Longstaff, Neil is fully aware of the way in which he is viewed. “In terms of everything that happened after I conceded that penalty, it probably would have affected me a lot three years ago,” he said. “But I’ve been in the first team for a long time now, and I understand what happens when I have a bad game. I try not to get too down about it. I was a fan, and when people make mistakes and we lose games, I’d get frustrated at the players. I’m not going to sulk about what people are saying.”

Neil’s level-headedness is commendable, but the criticism felt harsher than it would have been if a Jobe Bellingham or a Patrick Roberts was conceding a decisive penalty.

The same is true when it comes to Hayden Hackney at Boro, another boyhood fan living out his dream, another player who has increasingly become a target for the ire of the fans. Boro have had a mixed start to the season. Their midfield hasn’t been functioning particularly well. But Aidan Morris, fresh from a summer move from the MLS, is widely regarded to have done excellently since arriving on Teesside. Hackney, playing alongside him, and pretty much hitting all of the same metrics, was generally deemed to have been badly underperforming even before he was sent off at the weekend.

And what about Stewart Downing? As a 35-time England international, Downing is surely the greatest academy product ever to have come out of Rockliffe Park. He had two spells as a Boro player, and even rewrote his contract to ensure he was able to keep playing for his hometown club. Yet is he lauded as an all-time Boro great? Was he constantly championed when he was playing for the club? I’d argue not.

It's an interesting dynamic, and it’ll be fascinating to see if Chris Rigg, currently in the honeymoon phase of his Sunderland emergence, retains his sheen. He’s one of our own. Yes, he is. But eventually, that might count against him.