EX-ARSENAL physio Gary Lewin has revealed how the Gunners once used information from a medical to sell a player for a huge transfer fee just 18 months before he was forced to retire through injury.
Lewin, 59, spent 22 years as a physiotherapist for the North London giants between 1986 and 2008.
And he has now opened up about how they work, as well as the reason behind them.
Speaking on Ben Foster's "Fozcast", he said: "A medical is to decide is someone fit to sign or not.
"A medical is a risk assessment: how many games you've played in the last three years, significant injuries you've had in the last three years.
"What tends to happen, some clubs use a red, green, amber system. We use a five point grade system where a grade five is a very, very high risk. We then give that back to the club. It's not a yes or no."
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Lewin went on to give an unnamed example of a high risk player that Arsenal signed and sold shortly before they estimated his body was set to break down.
He added: "We signed a player for about £5million – a well-known international player. He had a cruciate injury 18 months before we signed him.
"We did a full medical on him and we saw an orthopaedic surgeon and the surgeon said 'He's got early signs of degeneration of the knee that he's had surgery on, you will get three or four years out of him at this level, then that knee will start to degenerate'.
"So we went back to the board, we graded that risk, spoke to the manager, and he said 'We're going to sign him, that's great information to have, I will use that in the future'.
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"I thought nothing of it. Two and a half years later, we'd won a few trophies and he was a big part of that. We then sold him to another European club for £25m. 18 months after that he retired."
There is no suggestion Arsenal deliberately sold the unnamed player knowing he would be unable to play for much longer.
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