Last season, Cardiff City were dominant in the Championship, winning the division by a convincing eight points from last year’s second tier runners –up Hull City.
Fast forward nine months and the Bluebirds have sacked their manager who lead them to the monumental feat of promotion to the Premier League, installed a former Manchester United legend into their hotseat, slowly crumbled as the season has gone on culminating in last Saturday’s 4-0 loss to the Tigers.
It all started well for Cardiff, beating Manchester City at home in their first home game in the Premier League, but even at that stage no one was to expect the downward spiral they would take to this point in time.
The view from the majority of the Cardiff fans was that former manager Malky Mackay was very poorly treated by owner Vincent Tan, who eventually told him to either resign or be sacked.
All throughout this somewhat ruthless behaviour by the Malaysian owner, the Scotsman stood firm, but was eventually relieved of his duties after losing 3-0 at home to Southampton on Boxing Day.
Cardiff quickly sourced out their replacement, bringing in former Manchester United striker, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Yes, he is a more famous name than his predecessor, yes he has played for probably the biggest club in the world, unlike his predecessor, who had spells at teams such as Norwich, Watford and West Ham just to name a few, Yes the former Red Devil’s striker has more accolades to his name from his time managing in his native Norway, but as time as gone on, and as the Bluebirds continue to not be able to get a decent run of results going ,it has shown that being a name cannot guarantee success.
Since winning his first game, an FA Cup tie against Newcastle at St James’ Park, Cardiff have been in appalling form.
Only one win from seven Premier League games since that great win on Tyneside has seen them slip into the relegation zone and also included losing their spot in the prestigious cup competition to Championship side Wigan Athletic.
With relegation looming over their heads, Solskjaer not being experienced managing in the Premier League, as the likes of some the other Manchester United alumni are, and very little time for the South Welsh club to escape the clutches of relegation back to the Championship, is this football’s way of saying that they shouldn’t have been so hasty in sacking their former manager?
Source: DSG
