Chilean star Alexis Sanchez has sensationally claimed he wanted to tear up his Manchester United contract and return to Arsenal after just one training session at Old Trafford.
In January 2018, United reportedly paid Sanchez more than £500,000-a-week to prise him away from Arsenal in a straight swap deal which saw Henrikh Mkhitaryan go the other way.
However, Sanchez’s dream move to United quickly turned into a nightmare as he made just 21 starts across his first two full seasons at Old Trafford.
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The former Barcelona forward scored just five goals in 45 appearances in total before sealing a season-long loan move to Inter Milan for the 2019-20 campaign – a transfer which he eventually made permanent earlier this summer.
But the 31-year-old has now revealed his move away from Old Trafford would have happened much earlier had he got his way.
Sanchez said in an Instagram video: “I got the opportunity to go to United and it seemed tempting to me. It was something nice for me, because when I was a kid I liked that club a lot.
“I ended up signing without much information about what was happening in the move. The first days that I was with my colleagues, sometimes there are things that you do not realise until you arrive.
“The first training I had I realised many things. I got home and I told my representative: ‘Can’t the contract be terminated to return to Arsenal?'”
“They start laughing and I told them that something did not sit right with me. It had already been signed.”
Sanchez recalled a match against West Ham in September 2018 when Jose Mourinho opted to leave him out of the matchday squad entirely.
He said: “In a game with West Ham I wasn’t picked. That had never happened to me as a player. It bothered me and I said it couldn’t be possible.
“To go from being one of the best in the Premier League to not playing in five months. I came to my house and I was very sad. The next day I trained in a double shift, because I love what I do.”
Defeat to West Ham at Old Trafford was one of Mourinho’s last in charge as United dismissed the Portuguese with the club languishing in mid-table.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was appointed in December of that year and Sanchez swiftly took the opportunity to discuss a move away, first joining Inter on loan the following summer.
He added: “I told him that I needed to take a breather, and the opportunity to go to Inter. He told me that yes, there was no problem.”
