Man Utd boss Solskjaer gets alternative to a sporting director

Ole Gunnar Solskajer TEAMtalk

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been given the green light to appoint a “personal scout” at Manchester United, according to a report.

The Sun claim that the Norwegian has is using Simon Wells from the club’s recruitment team to assess players with a view of improving the first team.

The tabloid says that Wells will “report directly to the manager” and has been sanctioned by Ed Woodward with the club yet to appoint a sporting director at Oldf Trafford.

The pair are understood to have a close working relationship with Wells working in Norway scouting for United while Solskjaer was in charge at Molde.

The piece claims Wells “helped secure Sweden centre-back Victor Lindelof from Benfica” and he was “also one of the first looking at Joao Felix” before he moved to Atletico Madrid for £113million in the summer.

 

United were said to be looking for a suitable sporting director candidate over the summer, with  Solskjaer saying in April: “Me and Ed (Woodward, executive vice-chairman) and Joel (Glazer, co-chairman), we are looking at how can this club be ran as smoothly and as well as possible.”

Paul Mitchell of RB Leipzig, Ajax’s Edwin van der Sar, Monchi and Atletico Madrid chief Andrea Berta have all been mentioned as target over the last 18 months, but nothing has come off the speculation with United yet to make an appointment.

And when he was asked about the situation this week, Woodward said: “Regarding the speculation around the Head of Football, we are continually reviewing and looking at the potential to evolve our structure on the football side. Much of the speculation around this type of role revolves around recruitment – an area that we’ve evolved in recent years.

“As we’ve already mentioned, we feel the players we’ve signed in the summer demonstrate this approach is the right one.”