'Cristiano Ronaldo made his Man Utd debut in place of me - what he did was different'

Manchester United Nicky Butt has opened up about what surprised him most after Cristiano Ronaldo joined the club.

Back in 2003, Ronaldo caught United manager Sir Alex Ferguson's eye as a budding young talent from Sporting CP. The 18-year-old also had an opportunity to impress his soon-to-be team-mates in a pre-season friendly earlier that summer.

United snapped up Ronaldo for £12million, a record-breaking fee for a teenager in English football at the time, and handed him the number seven shirt. However, despite the excitement that surrounded Ronaldo's debut as he helped the team to a 4-0 win against Bolton Wanderers, it was the winger's attitude in training that most impressed Butt.

"Ronaldo finally arrives and he makes his debut against Bolton – he actually came on for me, funnily enough, so I think that's my claim to fame," Butt joked on the Football's Greatest podcast. “I was there with him for about 18 months, I reckon, and I remember him being a really nice, young lad. Always pally with [Eric] Djemba-Djemba, if you remember, always best mates.

"What got me was his love for training. He was dribbling too much, he was losing the ball too much, but the courage and the bravery he had to keep doing it against big characters and big players in training stood out for me."

United legend Paul Scholes has revealed that Ronaldo's early days at Old Trafford were marked by frustration, as his flashy skills didn't always translate to goals. "He used to drive you up the wall because he's doing all these tricks and flicks," Scholes recalled.

"We wanted to see people score goals and make goals. We wanted to see something at the end of it, but there were people, even in that Bolton game, just taking the ball off him at times. You can't do that to us.

“He was the skinniest, scrawny lad but he worked so hard on the training pitch. He used to put weights on his ankles when he was doing runs, he was in the gym with [power development coach Mick Clegg] all the time, and then he just learned.”

Scholes pointed to Ronaldo's displays against AC Milan and a late winner at Fulham in 2007 as signs that the Portuguese star was finally reaching his full potential. Despite this, Scholes admitted that none of his teammates could have predicted the incredible heights Ronaldo would achieve in his career.

"It's outrageous what he has done. I don't think anybody can sit there and say, 'We played with him and thought he was going to best the best in the world, score that many goals, and be one of the best the world has ever seen,'" Scholes argued. "I don't think you can say that, but when you look back and think about it, he had all the tools to do it. He had the mindset, the way he looked after himself, he had everything about him to do what he's gone on to do."

Ronaldo's development as a prolific goalscorer was pivotal to United clinching three consecutive league titles and winning the Champions League in 2008 before his record-breaking move to Real Madrid. However, Butt is sceptical whether Ronaldo would have reached the same level of fame if he had remained at Old Trafford.

"I always wonder what it would have been like if Ronaldo had stayed for another four or five years at United," Butt said. "Would he become the superstar that he is? I don't think he would of.

"I don't think the manager, with his personality, would've liked him to have become on to that stratosphere as an individual, because if you look at all the superstars, they never stay in the Premier League, they certainly don't stay at Man United."

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