New Cardiff City manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said that he was confident of helping the club stay in the Premier league despite starting his reign in the league with a 2-0 defeat against fellow relegation strugglers West Ham. Former Manchester United star Solskjaer was recently appointed as the replacement for Malky Mackay, who was sacked a few weeks ago after falling out with the owner Vincent Tan. Solskjaer has no experience of managing in the Premier league, while his experience has so far been limited to clubs in Norway.
Despite this, he began the Cardiff career in brilliant fashion after a 2-1 win over Newcastle at St James’s Park. Cardiff could not maintain the momentum for long because they were beaten by West Ham in a crucial league match. The 2-0 defeat coupled with the other results going there with meant that Cardiff were bottom of the table after the end of the match. Despite the setback, Solskjaer was confident that Cardiff will avoid relegation. The club spent a huge amount of money after being promoted in the summer, but results have been poor in the last few months.
Cardiff have little chance of taking three points in their next match, as they will face Manchester City, who are extremely strong at home, at the Etihad stadium.
“I was surprised by the bad start we had… we never got going first half. The energy and the enthusiasm that we’ve seen – and we saw second half – wasn’t there. We had about double the possession of them, we had twice the shots. So sometimes football is that way, that you don’t get what you deserve. We had a couple of decent shots and their keeper [Adrian] did well but… they don’t really count when you don’t score,” said the former United star.