Why Danny Murphy was right to break the pro's silence over these bad tackles
The howls of anguish and indignation were probably heard across Stoke, Blackburn and Wolverhampton this morning.
After all, it is not enjoyable to see yourselves described as the architects and planners of footballing assassination squads.
But while Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce and Mick McCarthy will doubtless seek to strike back at Danny Murphy's astonishing attack on the three managers and the teams they have sent out, it is hard to deny the Fulham skipper had a point worth making.
Of course, Murphy is speaking as the captain of a team that has suffered at the hands of the three sides he mentioned - he did not pick them out at random.
The essence of the argument, though, was one that has resonance.
"The pace some of the players are going into tackles is ridiculous. There are no brains in the players doing that, no logic or intelligence in what they are doing.
"Players need to be more intelligent, especially the ones who are doing it repeatedly. They are culpable in that.
"But it's the managers who dictate what the players do and how they behave. You get managers sending teams out to stop other sides from playing, which is happening more and more.
"Look at Stoke, Blackburn and Wolves. You can say they're doing what they can to win the game but the fact is that the managers are sending the players out so pumped up that inevitably there are going to be problems. You can look at the players and blame them. But every team has a captain and a manager who is in charge."
Strong stuff, incendiary even. But Murphy has watched Bobby Zamora stretchered off with a broken leg, witnessed the pain on the face of Moussa Dembele, seen Mark Schwarzer subjected to a blatant attack.
And the Fulham skipper has decided it is time to stop the pretence and say what he really thinks.
Admittedly, there is an irony in a team managed by Mark Hughes, never scared of getting stuck in himself and whose own Blackburn outfit were not exactly shrinking violets, taking the role of accusers in chief.
What must be said, too, is that dangerous tackles are not only a problem in England. Look at the shocker Atletico Madrid's Tomas Ujfalusi committed on Lionel Messi last month, or the similarly awful foul that saw Germany striker Stefan Kiessling ruled out for two months.
But the difference in England, as Murphy was making clear, is that there is a climate in which reckless challenges seem to be encouraged.
Nigel De Jong's leg-breaker on Hatem Ben Arfa came just 24 hours after Karl Henry, who inflicted Zamora's injury, saw red for a truly terrible foul on Wigan's Jordi Gomez, while Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey is still not back after the horror break he suffered in a contact with Stoke's Ryan Shawcross.
Of course the players do not go out to fracture limbs. Nor are they encouraged to do so.
Yet it is fair to say - as Murphy was suggesting - that the culture of a few dressing rooms does lead to the lack of due care and attention which can cause serious injury.
Even FIFA, belatedly, have got involved, with Michel d'Hooghe, a member of the ruling body's executive committee, stating: ""Some players come on the field... simply to provoke injuries in other persons - to break a career. I have two eyes, where I can see what happens - how some acts are really criminal."
To be fair to McCarthy, he was quickly out of the blocks to condemn Henry's latest indiscretion and also insists his team are competitive rather than dangerous.
Wolves' performance at Spurs last month was a case in point, harrying the ball and not giving Tottenham any time in possession - until a suicidal lunge allowed Rafael Van Der Vaart to score from the spot and spark a late goal rush.
McCarthy also summed up the problem perfectly, the facts which make the situation more endemic in England than anywhere else.
The Wolves boss said: "FIFA and UEFA would like to take all that competitiveness out of football. We'll all have a nice tippy-tappy game - and nobody will come and watch it I'm afraid because the British public actually enjoy people tackling and competing."
McCarthy was right there. If we're being honest, Aston Villa's goal at Spurs on Saturday, after Emile Heskey muscled Sebastien Bassong off the ball, would have been a free-kick to Tottenham in any other country. Wrongly, but that is how football is played elsewhere.
Saying that, De Jong grew up in Holland, where the "Clogs of War" are now being worn with spikes on, it seems yet Murphy's contribution to the ongoing debate will surely have repercussions.
And whether you agree with him or not, his argument was one that needed to be made.
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