Murphy: managers at fault for bad tackles

Zamora had his leg broken earlier this season (GETTY IMAGES)

The Fulham captain Danny Murphy has blamed the rash of dangerous tackles on the managers of Stoke, Wolves and Blackburn for sending out their players too pumped up.

Bobby Zamora, the Fulham striker, suffered a broken leg in a challenge by Wolves' Karl Henry and the same player was fined two weeks' wages by his club after another savage tackle on Wigan's Jordi Gomez at the weekend.

Murphy called some tackles "ridiculous" and "brainless" and said managers had to take responsibility. Speaking at the "Leaders in Football" conference in London, Murphy said: "Your manager dictates 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, 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 are inevitably going to be problems. Every ship has a captain, and that's the manager."

Murphy said there should be tougher sanctions for dangerous tackles – especially for repeat offenders. He said: "The pace at which some players go into tackles is ridiculous. There's no brains involved. I don't believe players are going out to break legs but there has to be some intelligence involved. If you are going at someone at a certain pace and you don't get it right you are going to hurt them. Players should be culpable for that."

Fulham always topped the Fair Play League during Roy Hodgson's time as manager – something that was no coincidence, said Murphy. "If you have a manager like Roy Hodgson in charge you don't get discipline problems," he said. "He wouldn't accept talking back to the referee and stupid tackles."