And now, with Butler replicating the same sort of form he showed in his finest year with United, Adkins admits the club will struggle to hold onto him.
The Doncaster-born defender can leave for nothing under the Bosman ruling at the end of the season when his contract runs out.
"It is going to be an uphill task to keep him because you have seen him again against Palace and he has been a colossus", the United boss admitted in the Scunthorpe Telegraph.
"Andy Butler is a player that has come through our youth system and we desperately want to keep him at the football club. Obviously with the finances that everybody else can offer, other clubs can easily give him 10 times what we can.
"At this moment in time, with the way finances are, he can make himself very rich."
Butler himself revealed that his family is his main priority, as he is expecting his first child later on this year.
"I don't know what will happen. I have got contract talks with the gaffer and it is ongoing, so you never know" he admitted.
"I will probably wait until the end of the season. I have got to work out what is best for me and my family now I am an expecting dad."