Ole Gunnar Solskjaer appoints personal scout to help him find Man Utd transfer targets

OLE GUNNAR SOLSKJAER has appointed a personal scout to look at his transfer targets.

The Manchester United boss is using Simon Wells from the club’s recruitment team to assess players with potential to get his team competing at the top again.

His move, seeing Wells report directly to the manager, comes with United’s blessing after a year of the club looking at options for a director of football.

The relationship between the pair started when Solskjaer was working in Norway for Molde, while Wells scouted Scandinavia for United.

Wells has a good reputation for analysing players and working with data - his knowledge helped secure Sweden centre-back Victor Lindelof from Benfica.

He was also one of the first looking at Joao Felix from the Portuguese giants, with the youngster moving to Atletico Madrid for £113million in the summer.

United have a huge scouting network, widely reported to have 58 people looking at players.

The team includes chief scout Jim Lawlor and head of global recruitment Marcel Bout, while Matt Judge negotiates the deals.

But while the club have players they are keeping tabs on, Solskjaer is leaning on Wells for reports on his own targets.

United enjoyed a good summer in the transfer market, with Harry Maguire, Dan James and Aaron Wan-Bissaka making a good impact despite inconsistent results.

Vice-chairman Ed Woodward recently insisted United would continue to review how they can improve their footballing structure with no appointment for a director of football.