Alexis Sanchez wanted to leave Manchester United immediately after joining from Arsenal in 2018, according to his own account of his first training session at Carrington.
The Chilean international spent almost four years as Arsenal's talisman before moving to United in a swap deal that sent Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the opposite direction. However, the 37-year-old never reproduced the form that made him one of the Premier League's best players during his time in north London.
Wilshere: He shouldn't have left
His former Gunners team-mate Jack Wilshere admitted the move should never have happened. Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast this week, the Luton boss was asked by Gary Neville why a player of Sanchez's quality never made it work at United.
Wilshere questioned whether Sanchez was given the same freedom at United as he had at Arsenal. He said: "I don't know, he shouldn't have left I don't know how Jose [Mourinho] works but what I would say is someone like him would have to change for Mourinho."
He added: "He had a lot of freedom at Arsenal because he would win you a game or dribble past someone, we'd allow it a little bit, whereas I'm not sure he got that there."
First training session doubts
Sanchez scored just five goals in 45 games for United over two seasons before being loaned to Inter Milan in the 2019/20 campaign. He eventually made the move permanent the following season, but his time in Manchester may have been doomed from the start.
A month after leaving United for Inter in September 2020, Sanchez said: "I accepted the opportunity to go to United, it felt tempting and it was something good for me, I liked this club a lot when I was a kid."
He continued: "Eventually I signed but I didn't ask for information on what was happening inside the club. Sometimes there are things that you don't realise until you get there, and I remember the first training session I had, I realised a lot of things."
"After the session I got home and I told my family and my agent, 'Can you not rip up the contract to go back to Arsenal?'. They laughed, I told them there's something that doesn't sit right, it doesn't seem good. But I already signed, I was already there. After the first few months I carried on having the same feeling, we weren't united as a team in that moment."
Mourinho snub
Sanchez's loss of form coincided with Jose Mourinho's apparent lack of faith in him. The Portuguese boss left him out of United's matchday squad against West Ham a month into the 2018/19 season.
Sanchez 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."
He added: "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."
