Solskjaer Takes Cardiff City Job To Prove Just How Mental He Is
HE may have worked under a demanding boss under Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must be the most mental, masochistic man in football for taking the job at Cardiff City to work with the batshit Vincent Tan.
Previously, Tan’s money saw him changing Cardiff’s kit from blue to red, because of some bunkum about ‘luck’ and changed the club’s crest while he was at it. Some fans sucked it up because Tan was throwing enough cash at the club to get them into the Premier League. Of course, it takes more than mere pennies to make a side successful (hey there QPR!) and in recently-axed manager Malky Mackay, they had a good head at the helm, popular in football and performing well under a crazy chairman who liked wearing football shirts over a shirt and tie.
Mackay was the man who got Cardiff City promoted to the Prem for the first time, and the first time they’d been in the top flight for 51 years. They also appeared in FA Cup and League Cup finals. Heady days indeed.
However, Tan decided to send a shitty email to his over-achieving manager, which went public, and Mackay wisely refused to quit because at least he’d get severance pay if he got shoved out of the job. See? Mackay is canny and not to be underestimated.
And now, with a relegation battle on his hands, Tan has decided to take on the promising and hugely likeable Norwegian to take them further after spending three seasons in charge at Norwegian side Molde who were doing well in the Not Nearly As Demanding (No Offence) Tippeligaen.
Solskjaer could’ve gone to Aston Villa – a much more sensible outfit – in 2012, but he refused, instead preferring to work with an absolute maniac at Cardiff. And Ole’s first match will be against Newcastle at St James’ Park, a team not playing at all badly and invariably looking for a decent cup run to keep Alan Pardew in a job.
The Babyfaced Assassin hit the ground running at his first news conference saying that one of his main aims was to finish above arch-rivals Swansea City this season.
However, with Vincent Tan as your boss, you can’t safely say the former Manchester United striker will even have a job by February. An unproven manager, playing for an unsettled team with a loon calling the shots. This isn’t going to be pretty and, while you have to feel a bit sorry for Solskjaer, the real people deserving of our worry are the Cardiff City fans, who must feel like they’re supporting a circus at the minute.
Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
