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Reuters
Reuters
Business

Sanchez says he wanted Man Utd exit after one training session

FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Europa League - Inter Milan Training - RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne, Germany - August 20, 2020 Inter Milan's Alexis Sanchez during training Ina Fassbender/Pool via REUTERS

Inter Milan forward Alexis Sanchez has said he was ready to end his ill-fated spell at former club Manchester United after only one training session with the Premier League side.

United had signed Chile international Sanchez in January 2018 after he scored 80 goals in 3-1/2 years at Arsenal, but he failed to reach those heights at Old Trafford under both Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with five goals in 45 games.

The former Barcelona man joined Inter on loan at the start of the 2019-20 campaign, before the Italian Serie A club signed him permanently on a three-year deal in August.

"I accepted the opportunity to go to United, it felt tempting and it was something good for me ... but I didn't ask for information on what was happening inside the club," Sky Sports quoted Sanchez as saying in an Instagram post https://www.instagram.com/alexis_officia1/?hl=en.

"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."

Inter Milan, last season's Serie A runners-up, will visit promoted Benevento in their first match of the 2020-21 season on Sept. 20.

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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