NICKY BUTT has admitted it's "impossible" to keep Manchester United kid Hannibal Mejbri "under the radar" following his high-profile transfer last summer.

The Red Devils managed to lure the young French midfielder from Monaco in a £9.3m deal in July, with the player aged just 16.

But thanks to the hype around him, United's head of first-team development Butt is frustrated they weren't able to shield him from other clubs, knowing he is now on their radars.

Butt admitted: "It's hard to get him under the radar when we've chased him for so long and he's come from a big club for a big fee, so that's impossible.

"But you want to get young people under the radar because, coming from a different country and getting the price tag in your head and coming to one of the biggest clubs in the world, there's going to be so much pressure in the first place.

"I've got a 16-year-old kid who, I would hate that pressure on their shoulders…

"But they have that and it'd be foolish to put them out there too soon, because you don't know what's around the corner. They're children."

Butt went on to admit that the route to the first-team isn't always the same – saying that for every meteoric rise, like Marcus Rashford, there's a loan ranger like Jesse Lingard.

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