• Manchester United legend set for hero’s welcome
• Solskjaer expects his Cardiff side to play with pride
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will live an “unrealistic dream” when he returns to Old Trafford as the manager of Cardiff City to take on Manchester United on Tuesday evening.
The Norwegian enjoys legendary status at United having scored the winner in the Champions League final in 1999 against Bayern Munich in the dying seconds.
Solskjaer, who spent 11 years at the club before leaving in 2007, is expected to receive a hero’s welcome on his return. “It has not been an ambition but it has been sort of an unrealistic dream,” the 40-year-old said. “You never know one day you might end up there. The former manager [Sir Alex Ferguson] just always installed into us ‘dream big’, and maybe unrealistic, because you never know it might happen. For me to play at Man United was never in my wildest dreams. So now I’m there as a manager. It just comes by coincidence. You just end up there.”
United’s manager, David Moyes, believes Solskjaer is worthy of the reception he will get. “He deserves it because of what he has done here,” the Scot said. “He won the Champions League and was a great ambassador for Manchester United.”
Beyond the emotion Solskjaer knows Cardiff have to start winning as the club stand bottom and have not claimed a league victory for six games. “The position is the worst it can be in the Premier League but then again it is six points up to tenth so we hope to get our FA Cup form into the league games now,” he said. “We won two games and lost the two league games I’ve been here. I’m not too concerned about the performances. If we stay in this position for too long it will be a mental test.”
Asked what victory would mean, Solskjaer said: “Three points, of course. We can’t say that we are going to win, we are going to go there and put a performance on that we will be proud of, come back home with no regrets. You go out there to perform on the pitch and as long as you give it your all and come back from places like this with pride.”
Despite United’s poor league form that has left Moyes’s side six points from a Champions League place Solskjaer insists that they are still a formidable proposition. “Of course the fear factor is still there. You’re going to the biggest club in the world,” he said. “I can remember many bad defeats that you react to. That’s Man United, they always bounce back.
Solskjaer also stated that the signings of United’s Fabio da Silva and Stoke City’s Kenwyne Jones are near to completion. “Fabio and Kenwyne will join training today [Monday]. I have just met them and that is more or less done.”
Wilfried Zaha’s loan move from United is also impending. “Everything is not complete so we cannot confirm that. We hope to get that done in the next 24 hours or so, so he can be ready for the weekend,” said Solskjaer. “You never know with ins and outs but I think that is me concluded.”
- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
- Cardiff City
- Manchester United
- David Moyes
Jamie Jackson
theguardian.com