Seeing twin brother Jacob playing regularly in the Premier League is helping to bring the best out of Josh Murphy at Norwich City.

That is according to Newcastle winger Jacob, who could face his identical twin later this month, if City can win their FA Cup replay at Chelsea to seal a home tie against the Magpies.

'We speak most days,' said the former England U21 international, who the Canaries sold for around £12million last summer. 'The thing he'll say the most is 'Jake, I can't believe it – you play in the Premier League mate'.

'He says that all the time. He's so happy for me. I think this is spurring him on to get to the level he knows he's capable of.

'Growing up, people used to talk about twin telepathy. When we started playing in the first team at Norwich, all the older boys would be shouting 'stop passing it to each other!' But it always used to work – Josh would cut in, I'd start making runs inside then he'd pass it to me, and then I'd do the same.

'We're quite similar – I knew his runs, he knew my runs and we'd know where each other were. It was a natural thing, dead easy. A good part of my move was giving him the freedom to spread his wings a bit more at Norwich. He needed game time, he's got it and he's doing what I was doing last season.'

MORE: Canaries will host Newcastle United in the FA Cup fourth round – if they win replay at ChelseaThe Murphy twins, who grew up as Newcastle fans as their parents are originally from the north-east, were on the books at QPR before joining Norwich as under-12s.

Having played pivotal roles in the 2013 FA Youth Cup success for City's U18s, both established themselves in the Championship with the Canaries.

After scoring 10 goals in 40 games for City last season, Jacob made a slow start to life with Newcastle but won the club's November player-of-the-month award and is now a firm part of Rafa Benitez's team, setting up Ayoze Perez's winner at Stoke with a fine cross last week.

MORE: 'Josh vs Jacob, just got to get past Chelsea...' – Canaries fans eyeing a possible Murphy derby in the FA Cup'As each game's gone on and I've played more minutes, I've relaxed into it,' he added, speaking to the Magpies' matchday programme. 'I like to think I'm a confident boy. But when I was coming on and not doing well, people weren't really taking to me straight away, it was quite frustrating.

'It was a bit like, 'am I ever going to play well?' But I knew that in time it would come good. All I needed was a run of games.'