OPINION
Many Celtic fans likely believe that attacker Teemu Pukki is the one who wrongly got away not just because of his stellar form at Norwich City currently but because of Charles Nicholas’ opinion of him.
The Sky Sports pundit shared that he wasn’t overly surprised how well the 28-year-old was doing for Norwich as his movement was always decent at the Hoops and he didn’t always get the service he required.
“What we did see at Celtic was his movement was decent and he didn’t always get the service he was looking for and it was taking him a little bit of time because Celtic have so much possession, I think he was dealing with that it was all-action, all go and I think it just shows you, we talk about a lot of confidence in strikers and he has started to believe he can score a goal, you can get lucky you score a goal from y’know you go from being average to being vitally important,” said Nicholas on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday (Sky Sports News, Saturday February 16th 14:20).
Pukki has shone bright ever since leaving Celtic on a permanent basis in 2015 and has looked lethal in front of goal more often than not.
The 28-year-old scored 72 goals in 164 outings for Danish club Brondby and then after joining Norwich City in the summer this season, has scored a staggering 24 goals in 33 outings.
While at the time it looked right to let Pukki leave Celtic Park as he only managed to score nine goals in 38 outings, perhaps it wasn’t his fault he didn’t make the most of his time at the club.
As Nicholas points out, confidence is important to forwards and perhaps more should have been done to help Pukki get enough to fulfil his potential.
Also just like the pundit pointed out, Pukki didn’t get the service he would have thrived off at the club and really his teammates should be trying to make his job easier, not harder.
If the 28-year-old had been maybe had his teammates informed and trained into playing to his strengths, then who knows the attacker could still be at the club to this day, delivering the goods for Brendan Rodgers.
Yet that isn’t the case and instead Norwich City are benefiting from his talents in front of goal as they charged towards the Premier League.
So therefore with Nicholas’ verdict on Pukki implying that it perhaps wasn’t all the attacker’s fault about why his Celtic spell didn’t go to plan, many Hoops supporters will now likely believe more than ever that the forward is the one the club wrongly let slip through their clutches.