Crystal Palace are set to appoint Ben Wrigglesworth as their new chief scout.Wrigglesworth has been head of scouting at Wolverhampton Wanderers for the past four years, but will take up a new role with Palace in charge of their scouting to help sporting director Matt Hobbs, with whom he worked at Wolves.The 33-year-old has held various recruitment roles with Wolves since joining from Arsenal in 2018, including a spell as deputy chief scout and, before that, senior recruitment lead. He will now be brought into an increased recruitment department at Palace.While at Wolves, Wrigglesworth was influential in the signings of Matheus Cunha and Joao Gomes, both of whom became huge successes at Molineux. Cunha went on to join Manchester United in a £62.5million ($83.8m) deal, while Gomes’ form earned him a call-up to the Brazil squad, and he was the club’s player of the season in 2025.However, Wrigglesworth was sidelined last year by manager Vitor Pereira who, with then-head of professional football Domenico Teti, ran the club’s summer recruitment, who went on to sign many players against the wishes of the club’s in-house recruitment team. Wrigglesworth is believed to have recommended signing Harry Wilson from Fulham, but this was rejected by Pereira.He spent more than three years with Leicester City as a scout, where he played a significant role in bringing N’Golo Kante to the club and was assistant to Steve Walsh when Kante, Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy were recruited.Wrigglesworth will be joined in that expanding team at Palace by Botafogo scout Alessandro Brito who is due to head up Palace’s scouting in South America.Brito spent the past two years with the Brazilian side as director of scouting and, before that, four years as the club’s head scout, and was previously head scout at Athletic Mineiro.“We’re looking to bring someone else in,” Palace chairman Steve Parish said in an interview with The Athletic last December.“I don’t think it’s a one-person job anymore. I’m really enjoying working with (Hobbs). It’s a really good start to the post-Dougie era, a good portent, it’s going in the right direction.”The Athletic reported on Tuesday that Palace are close to hiring Lens manager Pierre Sage as their new manager after Oliver Glasner bowed out this summer at the end of his two-and-a-half-year contract, having won the FA Cup, Community Shield and UEFA Conference LeagueAnalysisThis is a major step in the right direction for Palace as they seek to change their recruitment.The plan has been to be smarter in their scouting, especially in areas where knowledge is less detailed or they are in areas the club has recruited from less frequently in the past, such as South America, to better understand the details behind players before they are signed.That is where the appointment of Brito, in particular, will be an advantage.It may help their summer transfer window, but some targets will have already been identified, such as Middlesbrough’s Hayden Hackney.Palace have a stable squad which requires more depth rather than necessarily significant improvement to the starting XI, and with the demands of their Europa League campaign next season, will be looking to strengthen in several areas.Much will also depend on whether any key players depart, but there is not pressure to sell for a fee less than their preferred asking price, and they would prefer to keep their squad intact.While the impact of these appointments may be relatively limited in the short term, in the medium to long term they should prove beneficial.