Wilshere reveals Sanchez wanted to quit Manchester United after his very first training session

Alexis Sanchez asked his agent to cancel his Manchester United contract after just one training session at Carrington, the Chilean has revealed — a disclosure that his former Arsenal team-mate Jack Wilshere says confirms the move should never have happened.

Sanchez joined United in January 2018 in a swap deal that sent Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Arsenal, ending a near four-year spell at the Emirates in which he had established himself as one of the Premier League’s most dangerous attackers. The move quickly unravelled: he scored only five goals in 45 appearances across two seasons before being loaned to Inter Milan in 2019.

Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, Wilshere — now manager of Luton Town — was asked by Gary Neville why a player of Sanchez’s quality failed to reproduce his Arsenal form at Old Trafford. “He shouldn’t have left,” Wilshere said. “I don’t know how Jose [Mourinho] works, but what I would say is someone like him would have to change for Mourinho. 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.”

Sanchez himself has been candid about his immediate misgivings. In comments made in September 2020, shortly after leaving United for Inter on a permanent basis, the now 37-year-old described the moment his doubts crystallised. “I remember the first training session I had, I realised a lot of things,” he said. “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.”

Sanchez added that the unsettled feeling never left him during his time in Manchester. “After the first few months I carried on having the same feeling,” he said. “We weren’t united as a team in that moment.”

The situation deteriorated further when Mourinho left Sanchez out of United’s matchday squad for a Premier League fixture against West Ham just a month into the 2018/19 season — a decision that left the winger publicly baffled. Sanchez eventually secured a permanent transfer to Inter Milan the following season, bringing a turbulent chapter at Old Trafford to a close.