Fulham midfielder Danny Murphy believes managers have a role to play in stamping out the poor challenges seen in the Premier League in recent weeks.
Murphy’s team-mate Bobby Zamora is sidelined with a broken leg suffered in a tackle by Karl Henry, and the Wolves man was then guilty of another poor challenge on Wigan’s Jordi Gomez last weekend, although the Spaniard did manage to play on.
Newcastle have now demanded the Football Association take action against Manchester City midfielder Nigel de Jong over the challenge that left Hatem Ben Arfa with a double leg break last Sunday.
And Murphy, speaking at the Leaders in Football Conference, claims managers are to blame for firing up their players too much.
He said: “Your manager dictates what your players do and how you behave.
“You get managers who are sending their teams out to stop other teams playing, which is happening more and more – the Stokes, Blackburns and Wolves.
“They can say it’s effective and they have got to win games but the fact is the managers are sending out their players so pumped up there is inevitable going to be problems.
“Every ship has a captain and that’s the manager who is in charge.”