Updated at 15.34
FORMER MANCHESTER UNITED striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been appointed as the new manager of Cardiff City, the Premier League strugglers announced on Thursday.
The 40-year-old joins from Norwegian club Molde and succeeds Malky Mackay, who was sacked on 27 December after his relationship with club owner Vincent Tan broke down.
“Cardiff City Football Club are delighted to announce that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has joined the club as first team manager,” read a statement on the Cardiff website.
“Following discussions with Tan Sri Vincent Tan and club chairman Mehmet Dalman, Ole, joining Cardiff City from Molde FK, today (Thursday) met with his new squad at the Vale training ground and will soon be unveiled to the press at Cardiff City Stadium.”
Solskjaer, who attended Cardiff’s 2-0 defeat at Arsenal on Wednesday in the company of Tan, has signed a “rolling contract”.
Cardiff were promoted to the Premier League after a 51-year absence last season, but Solskjaer arrives to find the south Wales club one point and one place above the relegation zone.
“I feel lucky to be back in the Premier League,” said the former Norway international, who was pictured holding a Cardiff shirt on the club website.“I had to have a talk about it with the family, obviously, but it is a great opportunity.”
Tan sparked angry protests from some Cardiff fans by sacking Mackay, having previously dismissed his head of recruitment, Iain Moody, in October.
The Malaysian also created controversy in 2012 when he forced Cardiff to change their traditional blue colours to red, but Solskjaer described reports that former United manager Alex Ferguson had warned him not to take the job as “absolute nonsense”.
“He has wished me the best and given me some good advice, as he always does,” Solskjaer added. “I had a good conversation with him.”
Solskjaer spent 11 years at United after signing from Molde in 1996, during which his boyish looks and razor-sharp instincts in front of goal earned him the nickname ‘The Baby-faced Assassin’.
He was renowned for coming off the bench to score vital goals, notably netting a famous injury-time winner against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final in Barcelona.
He joined United’s coaching staff after retiring in 2007 and was appointed manager of Molde three years later, leading the club to glory in the Norwegian top flight in 2011 and 2012 and last year’s Norwegian Cup.
First published at 13.12
Mayweather is a coward
Any man who hits a woman like he did is..
While they will both go down as 2 of the best pound for pounders, I think they’ll both also go down as the top two guys who devalued the sport of boxing as much as anybody else. I love boxing but if you look at the politics and corruption without boxing, it’s such an ugly sport.
If both men really wanted to prove their the best then they would have made this fight happen… Mayweather is the best of all time but not fighting Pac shows he wasn’t the bravest or most courageous fighter of all time and has selected a hard, talented but ultimately lower class fighter such as Maidana for his next fight… that’s where the true art of boxing has been lost over the last decade.
Once upon a time Pacquaio might have beaten Mayweather but that time had passed in afraid. Love him or hate him Mayweather is one of the best we’ve ever seen.
He continues to damage his credibility as a boxer and his fighting legacy with stupid throwaway comments like this.
If the challenging fighter isn’t a come forward brawler who walks into punches every round Mayweather has no interest in fighting them.
He will eventually give Pacquiao a shot so he can collect a massive payday, but only when Pacmans legs are completely gone, the same way he made Shane Moseley wait the best part of a decade until he was way, way past his prime and had the cheek to promote the farce as a “superfight”….
I’d love to see someone beat the shite out of Mayweather! …. Don’t think Pacquaio would be able too though..
Mayweather will never be beating. The greatest boxer of all time
Statistically
*beaten
I think what he is saying is pacman was using drugs when he had all the power. A little dig there
Good read, show the level of Mayweathers opponents to date:
http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/9/19/4747960/floyd-mayweather-and-the-10-greatest-unbeaten-fighters-of-all-time