Manchester United academy chief Nick Cox admits there was always a confidence of Kobbie Mainoo's commitment.

The midfielder broke into the first team this season and hasn't looked back.

"It is fair to say that the north-west is ferociously competitive because of the number of Premier League clubs and the size of the population," Cox told the Manchester Evening News. "Different battle in London.

"There is always the chance that one of your players is going to be of interest to another club. I absolutely am confident that Kobbie will have been on every club's radar, I would imagine clubs would have reached out to him.

"It's not within the rules, so I shouldn't know that, but my gut instinct would tell me absolutely, clubs would have been interested and tried to get messages to him. What I can say is no one ever came and put a formal bid in and Kobbie nor his family ever walked in the door and said, 'We're thinking about leaving.' Which also happens, that's part of the game as well.

"My sense is Kobbie has always been a happy young man here. He's got a supportive, grounded family network and the relationship between club and family and player and school - he was in our full-time education programme at Ashton-on-Mersey.

"So if you create that nice network around a young player and have a really good relationship with the agent as well, you're a team then and that team can plan and prepare a development programme as well. I've always felt the relationship is a strong and healthy one and never had a concern he might [go]."