Chris Smalling has revealed that he started considering the possibility of leaving Manchester United towards the end of the last summer transfer window.
Smalling joined Roma on loan for the season and has been first choice in the side since he overcame his initial injury troubles and got into Paulo Fonseca’s team.
The defender was a regular feature of Manchester United teams over the past few years, but things changed this summer when Harry Maguire was signed.
Smalling indicated that he was not thinking about leaving the club at the start of the summer, but it became gradually clear that he would not be playing regular football at Old Trafford this summer.
He revealed that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer assured him that he would get game time, but he wanted to play week-in-week-out and not just dip in and out of the team.
The defender insisted that once Roma made their offer it became clear that he was going to get more opportunities in Italy this season.
“I started to think about playing away from United quite late in the transfer window”, Smalling told The Athletic.
“I’d signed a new contract six months before and was playing regularly when Ole came in.
“Then there was talk of a new centre-back all summer. That was no problem to me, it’s part of the challenge and United have signed Victor [Lindelof)] and Eric [Bailly] in recent seasons.
“I welcomed them, I welcomed the challenge, worked hard and by the end of the season, I’d played more than many in the squad.
“Ole went with Victor and Harry in the first couple of games and put Axel [Tuanzebe] on the bench for some experience which is fair enough.
“If I hadn’t played so much in previous years, I might have been happy playing Europa League games and coming into other games depending on form and fitness, but late in the window, I felt I needed a clear picture of where I was at.
“I was in constant dialogue with Ole and he told me that I would play a fair amount of games. I would’ve played 20-25 games, maybe more, but then Roma made their offer.
“It was put to me and I felt I could play 40-50 games with Roma, maybe twice what I’d play at United.”
Smalling scored his first goal for Roma last night in 4-0 win over Udinese.
