Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can survive the perils of Premier League management

Solskjaer was appointed as Cadriff’ City manager on January 2nd

Manchester United legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was recently unveiled as Cardiff City’s new boss and is tasked with pulling the struggling team out of the relegation zone. The 40-year-old is no stranger to management, having previously managed Manchester United’s Reserve team before moving on to become the head coach of his boyhood club Molde. Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson gave his blessings to his former player, who is ready to leap into the hard, unforgiving world of the Premier League.

Solskjaer has extensive knowledge of the Premier League from the time he spent at Old Trafford, but the Cardiff top brass will need to give him time to fully turn things around at the Welsh club. Club owner Vincent Tan should make some funds available to the new manager and not interfere with his decisions in the transfer market. Tan is known to take matters into his own hands at times but should not do so with Solskjaer, because if anybody knows anything about young talent it is the man himself.

The ex-Red Devil is no stranger to success as both a player and a manager. Solskjaer had won a total of 4 trophies with the Manchester United Reserves in a span of as many years, including the 2009-2010 Premier Reserve League. Solskjaer continued his success as a manager in his homeland with Molde FK when he won the Norwegian Premier League for two consecutive seasons in 2011 and 2012 and even managed to lead the team to Norwegian Football Cup glory this year, securing a place in the 2014-2015 Europa League qualifiers in the process. The ‘baby faced assassin’ left Molde with an impressive 55.20% win rate.

The former Norwegian international proved to the world that he had a great eye for spotting talent when he brought former Manchester United starlet Mats Moller Daehli to Molde last year. The 18-year-old won critical acclaim for his performance with Molde and even won the “Talent of the Month” award for his performances. Daehli has been tipped to reunited with his mentor at Cardiff in the January transfer window. If Solskjaer manages to bring the youngster to Cardiff it would be a great signing, stats show that Daehli completed 91.88% of his passes last season and it would be great to test his talent in the Premier League.

Solskjaer has some pretty difficult games against Newcastle United, West Ham United and matches against both the Manchester clubs coming up so it can be safely said that things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better for Cardiff. The Premier League needs to give their managers more time and not hope for speedy results if they are to achieve any stability.

Solskjaer should take an example from Michael Laudrup, who is the manager of Cardiff’s rivals Swansea City. Laudrup has immense talent and even managed to lead Swansea to Capital One Cup glory in his first season. The Dane has also proved that he has immense skills in the transfer market when he purchased Spanish striker Michu for a bargain price of £2 million.

Solksjaer has already won the hearts of Cardiff’s faithful when he promised to finish above Swansea in the Premier League. Hopefully the ‘super sub’ will become a super manager and do just that.