Arsenal centre-back William Saliba said the club tried to recall him from his loan at St Etienne in January last year.
The 19-year-old joined the Gunners from the French side in the summer of 2019 for a transfer fee of £27million, with the defender heading back on loan immediately for a year.
However, Saliba says that the Gunners were hoping to bring him back to London halfway through the season - but he elected to stay in Ligue 1.
"[Arsenal] wanted me to come back in January [2020], I didn't, I stayed in St Etienne." Saliba told L'Equipe [via GFFN].
"After that, the fans were really looking forward to my arrival, I certainly didn't imagine that it would happen like this.
"Aside from that, it is football, I have learned that nothing is certain, you can be there, in your game, and then things can go south. I took a lot of experience from it, at least I will be ready for the future."
Saliba says that when he went back to the Gunners in the summer he had gone too long without playing or training fully to make a big impact in London.
Things became complicated with the premature end to the French season, and St Etienne's place in the Coup de France final taking place after his contract was due to end.
The French club asked the Gunners' permission to keep Saliba for the cup final, but he was eventually unable to play.
Saliba says there are plenty of reasons why it did not work out with Arsenal when he returned, but chief among them was his lack of football.
"There were a lot of factors I think because when they were finishing their league season, I was in quarantine at home, where I could only run one kilometre in my house," he added.
"And then there was this thing about the [Coupe de France] final, we didn't know if I was going to be able to play or not.
"What I mean is as soon as my contract finished [on loan at St Etienne], I wasn't able to train until an agreement was found. That was for two weeks, I wasn't training, and the others had already started training again [at St Etienne].
"After that, then I went over there at the end of July, they had one more week, so I was training all alone. They came back from holidays two weeks later and I was still training by myself.
"When they came back I played in two friendlies, but I wasn't ready, I hadn't played for six months. I had no preparation and to pick up rhythm, you need to play matches.
"The coach told me I wasn't ready, I thought: 'That's normal, these were just two matches and I hadn't played for six months.'
"After that I waited for my chance, I waited for him to play me more to get a rhythm. But that's football, it's like that, it's behind me and I took the experience."
