Manchester United have signed 21-year-old Senegalese striker Mame Biram Diouf from Norwegian club Molde, a player Sir Alex Ferguson has been monitoring for two years.
United said on their website that Diouf would attend a medical in Manchester next week with a view to joining the club in January.
Until then he will remain with Molde on loan.
No transfer fee was disclosed for a player who is currently the top scorer in the Tippeligaen, Norway’s football league, with 12 goals in 17 games.
At a press conference here hours earlier, Ferguson said he had snapped up a promising player from Norway, but refused to say who it was.
“We signed a young player yesterday from Norway who we’ve been looking at for two years,” Ferguson said.
“We weren’t intending on signing anyone else after last week — we feel we have a full squad — but the situation accelerated to a point where other clubs started to make bids, so we had to decide whether we acted or didn’t act.
“We decided to act and he’ll be the last person we sign.”
Norwegian TV station TV2 reported that as many as 12 European clubs were chasing Diouf’s signature, including French champions Bordeaux and German side Hamburg.
Ferguson had been tipped to use all of the £80 million that United received from Real Madrid for Cristiano Ronaldo.
But so far, his business has been limited to the capture of Michael Owen on a free transfer from Newcastle and the purchases of Wigan’s Antonio Valencia and Bordeaux’s Gabriel Obertan for a total of less than £20 million .
Ferguson reiterated on Friday that following Diouf’s capture, there will be no further signings at Old Trafford to bolster the Premier League champions before the transfer window closes at the end of August.
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