Norwich hails Teemu player Pukki after victory at QPR

Posted Sunday, September 23, 2018 by PA

Norwich manager Daniel Farke praised Teemu Pukki for his work-rate as well as goals after the Finn scored the winner at QPR.

Pukki’s 71st-minute goal was his sixth of the season and gave the Canaries a 1-0 victory at Loftus Road.

Marco Stiepermann’s cross deflected off Rangers defender Toni Leistner towards an unmarked Pukki, who chested the ball past wrong-footed keeper Joe Lumley from 10 yards out.

Pukki was outstanding throughout and has now been directly involved in six of Norwich’s last 10 league goals, scoring five of them.

Even more satisfyingly for Farke, the former Celtic man was brought in from Danish club Brondby in the summer on a free transfer.

“It’s our situation – we are not able to spend millions of pounds on players,” said Farke.

“At the end of last season we lost two of our best players, James Maddison and Josh Murphy.

“We have to be creative and perhaps find some solutions on loan or with free transfers.

“Of course we had some hopes when we signed him and he has been able to pay that back and we’re happy with this.

“What is also important is his work for the team, his movement and his pressing. His linking of play is also important.”

Norwich’s win was their third in a row and their second away victory in the space of three days.

“Nine points within seven days and our performances were really good, the week was very good and pretty important,” said Farke.

“It’s always good for confidence when you are able to win games by one goal and defend well and keep clean sheets.

“I would have preferred to score a second goal, because we had so many chances. But we stuck together and defended everything.

“Two away wins in a row is outstanding. It was a brilliant performance.”

QPR manager Steve McClaren insisted his side deserved at least a draw.

They had taken 10 points from their previous four matches and won their past two.

McClaren said: “That was very harsh. We deserved more. We didn’t deserve to lose.

“You could see a lot of endeavour, a lot of attitude – two very good teams I think. The cards didn’t fall our way.

“Norwich dominated the first half an hour and once we started to get on top of them and press them, we got hold of it and in the second half especially I could only see one winner.”

But McClaren admitted that Rangers paid the price for not having an end product despite the hard work of on-loan strikers Nahki Wells and Tomer Hemed.

“In these type of games you’ve got to have a bit of luck and that quality. There wasn’t any real quality in the final third,” he said.

“I said we’d take a minimum of six points out of nine this week and we’ve got that, but we should have had more.

“We’ve got to score and we’ve got enough quality in the team to score. But why we’ve lost is that we didn’t score. It’s simple.

“It’s one of them games; 0-0 unless someone produces that bit of quality. I thought it would be us with the quality we have in the team, but we haven’t scored and that disappoints me.”