January 34 – Former Norwegian international striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, known in his playing days as the “baby-faced assassin”, has taken on the challenge of trying to manage Premier League newcomers Cardiff City following the controversial sacking of Malky Mackay by the club’s Malaysian owner Vincent Tan.
Solskjaer, whose glittering Manchester United career was capped by scoring the dramatic extra time goal that won the Champions League in 1999, has been handed the task of putting Cardiff back on an even keel after a public spat between Tan and Mackay that led to pro-Mackay protests from the fans but couldn’t save the Scotsman’s job.
Solskjaer, whose appointment is generally viewed as something of a gamble, arrives in the Welsh capital after leading Molde in his native Norway to their first two league titles.
As well as the Champions League, he won a spate of league titles for United but has never managed at a top-flight club in one of the major leagues.
Having been used to total control of team affairs in Norway he joins a club run by one of the game’s most unpredictable owners who has pumped considerable funds into Cardiff but, even before getting rid of the man who took the club into the top flight of English football for the first time in half a century, enraged a section of the fans by changing Cardiff’s colours from red to blue.
Solskjaer’s first game in charge will be against Newcastle in the third round of the FA Cup on Saturday.
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