NEW ARRIVALS

Cardiff City’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants to boost his relegation side squad with new arrivals in this month. The club has already sealed the signing of the teenage midfielder Mats Moller Daehli from Molde and Magnus Wolff Eikrem from Heerenveen.

The Norwegian coach Solskjaer was appointed as the clubs first team manager at the beginning of the year but he is active and keen on adding more players to the team that is surviving just to stay at the Premier League.

There were rumors involving Manchester United’s duo Zaha and Fabio which claimed that Solskjaer also want to add them to the squad and when asked about the players of David Moyes, Solskjaer responded by saying:

“I can’t say anything on them (Zaha and Fabio) because they are players from Manchester United and I can’t comment on players from other teams,” said Solskjaer. “I am looking at strengthening my squad, but I can’t say names.

“It is not about the number. I will work with the players I have here but if the right one comes up then I will do business like I have with Magnus and Mats.”

The coach of Cardiff City continued on saying that he wants to create a new identity for the club and it is not only about copying or buying players from other clubs.

“We need our own identity, it’s not about emulating or copying anyone else, we want to play football.

“I want to develop Cardiff into a team everyone can be proud of the way they play football. That we can dominate games like we have done at home this season a few times. It’s not about copying anyone else, but obviously I want players I can trust and can play the way I want to.”

BACK TO BACK DEFEATS

Cardiff city have suffered back-to-back defeats after a 3-2 defeat at the hands of West Ham United in the League cup. Despite the defeat, Cardiff manager Malky Mackay said that he was extremely proud of his players. This was because Cardiff almost managed to take the game into extra time despite going 2-0 down early in the match. Cardiff managed to reach the third round of the competition after a 2-0 win over Accrington Stanley in the previous round. Ravel Morrison opened scoring for West Ham after just one minute before Matt Jarvis doubled the advantage after seven minutes.

It looked like yet another long night was reckoning for Cardiff, but they managed to get themselves back into the encounter through two goals. Peter Odemwingie scored the second goal for Cardiff in the 76th minute to equalise the match. Just when it seemed that the tie would go into extra time, Ricardo Vaz Tez scored with a header in the 88th minute to put West Ham into the fourth round. After the match, Mackay was extremely defiant despite suffering the second consecutive defeat. Cardiff are also without a win in the last four matches, but they could do well without the distraction of the League cup.

“Peter was excellent, he was dangerous and that’s what we wanted. He looked as though he would score a goal or set up a chance. But there is a need to get match minutes into him because he hasn’t played regularly for six months or so. The start gave us a mountain to climb, we were a shadow of our normal selves for most of the first half. But we tweaked a few things at the break and the players showed great belief after that,” said Mackay. Cardiff play against Fulham in an away match during the weekend.

SMITH FEARED FOR MANAGER

Cardiff city midfielder Tommy Smith has said that he feared the departure of manager Malky Mackay from the club after their promotion to the Premier league. Cardiff secured promotion through the automatic places last season. This has led to enormous interest surrounding their manager. After the departure of David Moyes from Everton, it was highly rumoured that Mackay would be a possible successor to the Scot at Goodison Park. Smith has now revealed that he feared that Mackay will leave the club.

Smith has played for Mackay at different stages in his career, and he is one of the few players in the Cardiff squad to have played in the Premier league in the past. Smith has represented the likes of Portsmouth, Watford, and QPR. He has been at Cardiff since 2012 and was an integral part of their promotion bid. This is only the second season at Cardiff for manager Mackay. Everton instead went in and brought Wigan manager Roberto Martinez, who has Premier league experience.

Mackay’s main job now will be to get Cardiff to Premier league safety at the end of the season. They have already lost out on a number of transfer targets despite securing their promotion several months ago. Smith, though, is confident that they can stay up in the Premier league.

“I was worried and I am sure a lot of other people were. It is part and parcel of being a good manager, likewise as a player, that you get linked [to clubs] and I was very pleased he stayed. You will have to ask him the ins-and-outs of it, but I am sure he has a job here he wants to fulfil and he has ideas and ambitions for this club. He wanted to stay and put them into motion,” said Smith.

STRONG FINISH

Cardiff managed to finish the season strongly after the 2-2 draw at Hull City. This got the praise from manager Malky Mackay after the match. He said that the players have shown incredible resilience over the course of the campaign not only to automatically get promoted to the Premier league, but to also maintain the push till the end of the season. Cardiff could have taken their foot off the pedal in the last few matches of the season after having known their fate. They did not only get the automatic promotion, but they also won the Championship title as well.

Cardiff are coming into the final match of the season on the back of the consecutive draws, but they managed to avoid defeat in the final day of the campaign following a late goal from Maynard. Former Sunderland striker Frazier Campbell had given Cardiff the lead in the first half, but they went behind in the second half following goals from Proschwitz and Paul McShane. However, an injury time penalty from Maynard helped Cardiff preserve their unbeaten run. The last time the team suffered a defeat was back in the month of March.

Since the 2-1 defeat against Peterborough, they have been undefeated.

“It wasn’t easy to focus with the attention on the game, but I have got a great group of professionals. The season is about going out and playing 46 games and seeing where the land lies after that. I thought you saw that here where right until the end, both teams were trying to beat each other. That’s the way it should work. There was no way we wanted to lose and I don’t think we deserved to. I had three forwards on at the end, but I don’t think Hull were expecting any favours from me,” said Mackay.