Danny Murphy

Danny Murphy has found out this week what it must be like to be manager of Arsenal. In joining Arsène Wenger in calling for players to think about their tackling, rather than just stamping any body part that moves, he too has been vilified by the press.

One old player after another has been wheeled out to say how the argument is rubbish. Players were loads tougher in the good old days; they'd be on the treadmill after 3 days with a pint in one hand and a cigar in the other. They've told us non stop how defenders like Ron Chopper Harris and Jonny brick in your face Jones would think nothing of severing your spine with a hunting knife they keep in their sock.

However, the strongest hatred was reserved for when Murphy suggested that managers have anything to do with the thought processes of a player.

"The fact is that the managers are sending the players out so pumped up that inevitably there are going to be problems."

For this, Murphy was singled out by the League Manager's Association, who stated, "professional football managers certainly do not incite their players to go out and cause injury to fellow professionals."

They've been backed up in their claims by a long list of players, many of whom have said their manager's have no say about how the team lines up; the bones of Eduardo, Diaby and Ramsey beg to differ.

Arsenal don't play football they way they do by accident. It has taken a manager's vision and hours upon hours of the manager's voice on the training pitch. Just in the same way Wenger's sides will always pass teams into submission, Mourinho's teams will grind their way through steel to victory, so the teams of Allardyce and Pulis must surely take some responsibility for Ramsey losing 9 months of his career, and Mark Schwarzer wondering how he ended up playing a rugby match with El Hadji Diouf.

It's not just managers who must take responsibility for the actions of their players, but they do have a part to play. And what a part they must play if the situation is to get any better.

The next generation of footballers will learn from the current, and at the moment they will see Rooney, Crouch et al behaving as they wish with no concept of consequences. Sleep with a hooker? No problem, sell a story and get some sympathy. Shatter a leg, no worries, the gaffer will tell everybody I'm not that kind of guy.

The problem with what Murphy and Wenger say is not that it's complaining, but that it's right and it makes for an uncomfortable truth for a game that can't seem to take responsibility for its actions at any level. How many more legs have to be snapped before the rest of football takes notice?

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