FA Cup: Cardiff's super sub boss becomes a super subber

“It is essential that the new manager boom is sustained for Solskjaer's Premier League debut at home to West Ham on Saturday. As odds of 2.111/10 assert, it is an enticing opener.”

Michael Lintorn reflects on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s winning start at Cardiff, and the tougher Premier League task ahead…

Following Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s widely complimented but risky appointment as Cardiff boss, it was inevitable that his every substitution would be gratingly greeted with a reminder of his own knack of changing games from the bench.

Yet, would you believe it, in his first game in the dugout away to Newcastle in the FA Cup, two of the players that he introduced in the second half transformed the game.

With the Europe-chasing Magpies leading 1-0, Craig Noone entered the fray and smashed in a long-range effort with his first touch, before fellow latecomer Fraizer Campbell, a former Man United colleague of the new boss, bagged the winner.

It means that as fellow relegation fearers like West Ham and Aston Villa, who unsubtly surrendered the FA Cup in pursuit of safety, saw morale further shredded by lower-league opposition, Cardiff were reinvigorated by their most impressive victory since tripping Man City in August.

Solskjaer said the right things after the match, referencing his team’s strong New Year’s Day showing at Arsenal rather than hogging credit for the turnaround and dismissing reports of a January squad overhaul. Instead, he claimed that he has inherited a solid base and merely needs to add depth.

That process should begin this week with the arrival of two Norwegian midfielders: Magnus Wolff Eikrem of Heerenveen and Mats Moller Daehli, a teenager who was once at Man United and played under Solskjaer at Molde.

While beating Newcastle has restored Cardiff’s optimism, it is essential that the new manager boom is sustained for Solskjaer’s Premier League debut at home to West Ham on Saturday.

As odds of 2.111/10 assert, it is an enticing opener, an immediate opportunity to put distance between themselves and the relegation zone, but it is a high-stakes initiation too, as defeat will see them slide beneath the 19th-placed Irons. The Bluebirds are presently fourth favourites to drop at 2.8415/8.

It certainly looks a dreamy time to be facing Sam Allardyce’s side though. They have taken a point from five games since their unlikely Capital One Cup quarter-final triumph at Tottenham.

More alarmingly, given the defensive strength that hinted that everything would ultimately work out earlier in the season, all their centre backs are injured and they shipped 16 in those five, a situation that could be exacerbated by Man City on Wednesday.