Daniel Farke says Teemu Pukki only missed Norwich’s pre-season friendly defeat to Brentford as a precautionary measure. Last season’s leading scorer in the Championship sat out Wednesday’s behind closed doors game at Norwich’s Colney Training Centre due to a toe injury. With the new Premier League season set to get underway in just over two weeks’ time, Canaries supporters may be growing concerned by Pukki’s absence.
However, Farke has now moved to allay those fears by revealing he did not want to take any unnecessary risks with the Finland international. “Teemu had so many games and our spotlight was not on this Brentford match,” Farke was quoted as saying by the Eastern Daily Press. “There will be more important games to come and we got the feeling we had to rest him a bit.
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“Plus he was there with a pretty good performance against Schalke 04 and there was a slight problem with his toe. Nothing too special but we got the feeling we shouldn’t take any risks with him in this game.” Emi Buendia did return from an ankle injury during Wednesday’s match and he scored Norwich’s goal as they slumped to a 3-1 defeat against their Championship opponents.
Farke was certainly not happy with the loss, but he was not reading too much into the result given it was more about building fitness ahead of the new season. “I am never happy with a loss. I want to win but sometimes though you are not disappointed at a setback,” the German added. “Circumstances were difficult, with the weather and the training ground it doesn’t feel like a proper match.”
