"He's gone straight in at the deep end but he's going to work with better players and I'm sure he will be much better for the experience he had at Cardiff."
Thursday 20 December 2018 12:33, UK
Craig Bellamy says Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will have learnt a lot from his experiences at Cardiff after being "thrown in at the deep end" at Manchester United.
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Solskjaer has been appointed caretaker manager at Old Trafford until the end of the season following Jose Mourinho's sacking and his first test comes against Cardiff, the club where he had a short-lived spell as manager in 2014.
Solskjaer left Molde to replace Malkay Mackay at the Cardiff City Stadium in January 2014 but he could not help the club beat relegation from the Premier League - and after a poor start to the following season in the Championship - he left his post just eight months after his appointment.
"I can only talk of my experiences of him when he was at Cardiff," Bellamy told The Debate.
"He came in from Molde at a difficult time for the football club. There was a lot going on at the club at the time with the shirt colour and it's always difficult for any manager coming in January anyway.
"The club and the supporters weren't quite getting along so he came into a difficult situation.
"His recruitment was poor. He had a January transfer window and the players he brought in, especially from Norway, were nowhere near good enough. They didn't have an impact on us straight away and didn't help improve the team.
"With the way he wanted to play he realised after a few weeks he didn't quite have the team or the players to implement the way he wanted to play. He ended up changing his mind straight away and going back to what Malky Mackay did, but it was all change. He was learning at the time."
While Bellamy, who played under the Norwegian at Cardiff, is surprised at Solskjaer's appointment at United, the former Wales international says he deserves another opportunity.
"Of course, I was surprised," he said. "It's a different situation [at Manchester United].
"I'm surprised it's at a club like Manchester United but I would have liked to have seen him get another opportunity because I'm sure he would've learned so much from the Cardiff experience.
"In the end it must've deflated him. You could see, even in the last few weeks of his job at Cardiff, he was a beaten man. He went back to Molde, he went back to what he knows and now he's going to get an opportunity at the biggest club in the world.
"He's gone straight in at the deep end but he's going to work with better players and I'm sure he will be much better for the experience he had at Cardiff."
