This, from Sky Sports News, isn’t exactly earth-shattering stuff, although it dispels the myth I so wanted to believe was true: that part of the tests including that bit where the player runs on a treadmill and breathes into a tube. I also had privately hoped there would be a sequence involving a team of medical experts and trainers expecting the footballer like a show dog, but alas, it’s all very personal.

Instead, a blood test, an ECG, a heart ultrasound, and an MRI scan seems pretty much it, all completed in record time. I especially enjoyed the patronizing doctor explaining to the footballer about the “black lines that indicate whether your heart is healthy.”

And of course, there is the unsettling (and unsaid) truth here; that these tests do not primarily involve the health and well-being of the subject, but saving the club millions of pounds in transfer fees for a shit product. It’s all a bit Clockwork Orange really, but utterly necessary. Perhaps in that kind of environment, the cynicism of the modern footballer should come as no surprise…