Turkish manager Yilmaz Vural has claimed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer swooped in at the last minute to take the Cardiff City job during the club's first Premier League campaign.
Current Manchester United boss Solskjaer took over from Malky Mackay and led an ill-fated attempt to keep the Bluebirds in the top flight in 2013-14.
However, Vural believes he was in pole position to land the post after being sounded out by the club's top brass.
Vural had conducted an interview with the Daily Mail and after CEO Mehmet Dalman, also of Turkish descent, read it, Cardiff believed they had found the perfect successor to Mackay.
Vural, at that point, had managed 22 clubs dating back to 1986 and came with a wealth of experience, a quality that both Dalman and owner Vincent Tan found attractive.
“My agent came to me and said Mackay will likely be dismissed," he told SportWitness .
"He said if Cardiff appoints me just after that, it won’t be a good thing because Mackay had the support of Cardiff City fans. We decided to wait for a couple of months.”
In those few months, the 66-year-old researched Wales diligently, attempting to understand the culture and history of the country and the club.
He watched all of Cardiff's games, researched the players and the staff and felt confident he would be offered the job and could hit the ground running.
But somehow, almost out of nowhere, Solskjaer emerged as an option for the Welsh capital club, and such was his star power having been an Old Trafford great, Cardiff appointed him as manager.
Vural said he predicted at the time that Solskjaer's appointment would ultimately lead to relegation - and that proved to be the case.
“At the end, my manager (agent) informed me that they would decide between me and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer," he added.
"As soon as I heard that, I knew he would take the job.
"And I told my agent that if they chose him, the club would be relegated. And that’s exactly what happened.”
