Teemu Pukki

Naw. * him.

 

Some players will flourish at other clubs where there is no where near the pressure to perform and be under the scrutiny like they would be here.

 

First goal today was an absolute belter

 

Abysmal striker, one of the worst I've ever saw.

Guess he's rated about £50m now down there, lol.

 

Really do think this is it. Must be brutal on you mentally playing for us.

 

Nah , just never fitted in here , hes proved he is a decent striker since.

 

Always liked the look of him. Did seem to have something about him but lost his confidence. Dont remember him getting a hard time just a bit of a dud for whatever reason.

 

Even when we had vvd and wanyama our scouting department was still flawed because huffy management don't give players enough time this guy was identified and never really got a chance... I say huffy for a reason management were * that hooper was sold

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Who was the manager when Pukki was here ?

 

Our current one...

 

Some players are just late bloomers and need to have a failed big move to kick on. I’ve no doubt the way Norwich are playing suits his game perfectly as well.

 

Remember on here that Pukki Party thing that folk used to put up that took up the whole thread? I think a few folk actually got bans for refusing to stop posting them.

But aye a player that went on to look really class actually

But it has happened the other way around aswell. Players who've looked good playing of us. Then dissapeared into oblivion in England. I.e Gary Hooper

 

R.I.P to the Chinchilla C.S.C.

* love that gif, it's the single best gif ever created.

 

Good graft by Teemu, has to be said.

With regards to it not working out for him here - there’s loads of players we’ve seen struggle here for one reason or another and go on the have success elsewhere, or have success before arriving here and then struggle. He was a neat footballer here but I always got the feeling that hi mentality was more suited to a smaller club, one that was more used to playing the underdog. The ‘win everything’ demand here seemed to take its toll on him and he didn’t appear to play with much freedom.

 

Killing it now.

 

The match ball from Teemu Pukki's hat-trick against Newcastle United is at home being guarded by his one-year-old daughter Olivia, who cannot help playing with it.

But the man himself is sitting in the Carrow Road stands, looking out at the pitch where he secured Norwich City's first win of the new season.

Alongside him is Sportsmail's Chris Sutton, the former centre forward, whose 25 goals in 1993-94 remains the record for the most scored in a Premier League season for Norwich.

Pukki is as polite a footballer as you will meet. Softly spoken yet self-assured. No sense of arrogance but a distinct confidence in his ability and a belief that he can beat our man's tally from 25 years ago.

Some bookmakers agree. They have slashed his Golden Boot odds from 100-1 to 10-1.

Ahead of facing Chelsea on Saturday, Pukki sat down to tell his story, from growing up in the Finnish coastal city of Kotka to becoming the Premier League's hot property at the age of 29.



SUTTON: Teemu, what a two weeks. You score against Liverpool at Anfield, then put three past Newcastle. Right now you must be the most talked-about player in the Premier League. Did you come to Norwich thinking this was possible?

PUKKI: I came here with a belief that I could score goals. At the start of last season in the Championship, we didn't get the results we wanted. We won once in our first six games. But the way we were playing, I knew I would get chances, and I knew I could score them. OK, I did not think I would score 29!

SUTTON: Well, you did and it got Norwich to the Premier League. Things didn't go according to plan with Celtic five years ago, so how did you get that belief back?



PUKKI: Before coming here, I had four seasons with Brondby in Denmark and they were crucial, mentally. The first two seasons there, I score nine goals, then nine goals. Then we get a new coach, Alexander Zorniger. A German guy. The next two seasons, I score 20 then 17. He pulled the players in, he got us so fit, and I realised defensive work is good for me.

SUTTON: We saw that against Newcastle. You got your hat-trick, but there was also a moment where you popped up at the other end, putting in a tackle on Joelinton to kill an attack. I almost fell off my settee. What on earth were you doing that far back?

PUKKI: I don't know! I'm just glad I was. Daniel Farke is so good, a man-manager - he is calm but he can shout if he thinks I'm not working. He knows me perfectly, how I am. He believes in me and I'm developing under him.

Someone told me half a million people have bought me on Fantasy Football since my hat-trick! It's still early in the season, so I need to keep doing the work. Now we have Chelsea. We are ready. We want to play already. We got our first points at home against Newcastle, and it would be stupid if we didn't believe we could get something against Chelsea.

SUTTON: I'll be honest, when I watched you in your opener against Liverpool, playing with the same style you used in the Championship, I thought, "Norwich, I support you, but you're bonkers". But then you showed against Newcastle you can win like that at this level. You proved a point.

PUKKI: That's the way we got up here. The players we have are made for this style of football. We know the Premier League is tougher but we just need to believe in ourselves. Against Liverpool, it was so tough to go there, but we still wanted to do it our own way.


SUTTON: You must be loving this personally. Here you are, at the age of 29, two games, four goals, looking like you belong in the top flight. It wasn't always like that, though. Is it fair to say you've been a late developer?

PUKKI: That's fair. It was only in my last two years with Brondby that I started to score. Growing up in Finland, ice hockey was the main sport. But I never played that. I went with footy. I never had any other hobbies. Since I was a young boy, it was about playing football, always as a striker, never another position.

SUTTON: So, which footballers inspired you? What team did you follow as a kid?

PUKKI: My favourite team was always Barcelona. When I was young, I went to see them, my first ever big game. Jari Litmanen was playing there at the time. In Finland, Litmanen is a big hero for all of us. But Ronaldo, the Brazilian one, he is my guy. The 1998 World Cup was where I first started to follow him, when I was eight.

SUTTON: Were you determined to become a professional footballer? Did you think it was possible? I don't know what the facilities were like in your hometown of Kotka, but I know it gets cold there…

PUKKI: The weather in Finland is different to here. In winter, you could not play outside, only in a hall. It was only after my first invite to join the Finnish international youth team that I started to think, "OK, this could be my life, more than just a hobby." I did well in the youth, and that's where Sevilla spotted me.

SUTTON: You were 17 at the time. How did you cope moving to another country which is far warmer than Finland and where you did not speak the language?



PUKKI: I brought my mum! She took a year off work. That was a big sacrifice from her. Both of my parents sacrificed a lot. My dad, Tero, would drive me to training every single day. My mum, Teija, came to Seville to help me. She did everything for me. It was such a big place to go at 17. Even if you can speak English, it doesn't matter there. It was all Spanish. They don't do English.


I had a good start in Seville. I got into the second team, I scored some goals, then I'm training with the first team, then suddenly I'm on the bench against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. I was 18.

SUTTON: That must have been an eye-opening experience.

PUKKI: Oh yeah. To be on the bench at Real Madrid… I remember the coach, Manolo Jimenez, telling me to warm up. He was going to put me in! But the left back got injured, so I never got my opportunity to play.

Then I get a small injury, and coaches changed. But I learned a lot. It was good to go back to Finland, to get a fresh start at HJK Helsinki, back in an environment that was… safe, you could say. I learned a lot in Spain.

SUTTON: So you were back home in Finland and scoring goals for Helsinki, but then you made a big move to Germany with Schalke. Another new country, another language you didn't know. How did that come about?

PUKKI: I'd played in a Europa League qualification match for Helsinki against Schalke and scored twice. Two days later, they call me and say, 'Come here'. Ralf Rangnick was the manager at the time. He signed me. Then two weeks later, he quit because he was burned out. Under the new guy, Huub Stevens, I got some games, got some goals. But maybe it was too big a step for me to go from Finland to one of the top teams in Germany.




SUTTON: Then comes your ill-fated time at Celtic. Your first season there, you received a lot of criticism. You scored seven goals in 25 games in the Scottish Premiership. In all honesty, did you expect Scotland would be easier than it was?

PUKKI: I did, yeah. I got the call, 'Celtic want you'. And I knew Celtic were a top, top team. I thought it would be much easier than it was. It was quicker than I thought. When you got the ball, there was always a defender at you.

SUTTON: Did Celtic set you back, confidence-wise? When I signed for Chelsea and struggled, I would tell myself I was OK, but deep down I knew I wasn't. Does that make sense?

PUKKI: Absolutely. It is hard when you think you can do better, but things just aren't working out.

SUTTON: So, how do you go from that, struggling to score for Celtic, to being where you are now, having people put money on you to win the Golden Boot?

PUKKI: Celtic feels like it was a while ago now. My four years with Brondby after that did me good.

SUTTON: A fresh start?

PUKKI: It was still hard at the start in Denmark. But in the last two years, I just started to score.



SUTTON: You scored 20 goals in 2016-17, then 17 in 2017-18. Surely Brondby, and other clubs, were desperate to secure your signature? So how did Norwich win the lottery? How did they get so lucky to get you on a free transfer?

PUKKI: Some teams had spied me the season before. They tried to sign me but we were doing well and Brondby wanted to keep the team together. Brondby offered me a new contract but I wanted to see what would be available in the summer. They wanted me to stay, and I almost decided to stay because I liked it there so much. But I wanted to experience something new. That was the reason I left, and I came to England.

SUTTON: Tell me the first time you ever heard of Norwich.

PUKKI: That summer!

SUTTON: Behave. You're telling me as a boy growing up in Finland, Norwich weren't a big club there? You must be telling fibs...

PUKKI: When I googled the team for the first time, I knew of Alex Tettey, because he'd played for Norway. As for the city, I had no idea. But it's been lovely for me and my family. All the people are so nice.

SUTTON: You grew in confidence so much last season, and the goals are flowing in the Premier League. Your daughter, Olivia, is two in December. You're 29, so can you continue to score at this level long enough for her to cheer you on?



PUKKI: Yeah, you have to believe. She's been here, in the stands. She starts clapping along, although I'm not sure if she's cheering for me or just because other people are cheering. When we are on TV, she knows it's me. 'There's Daddy!' I gave her my match ball from the game against Newcastle, and she's been playing with it.

My dad actually said he would buy her a similar ball so he can steal it for himself.

SUTTON: You might have to score another hat-trick just so he can have one of his own. One last thing, Teemu, and this was a question a lot of people were asking your manager before this season: can Norwich stay in the Premier League if you stick to the same style of play that got you promoted?

PUKKI: It would be stupid to change something that is working.




https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...-Sutton-scoring-Premier-League-hat-trick.html

 

Another against Chelsea