It’s something which might not have made sense shortly after his Parkhead exit but Scott Brown spoke during the week about his former teammate Teemu Pukki and admitted he’d have the striker back in a heart beat.
Pukki spent one full season as a Celtic player before being loaned out to Brondby who bought the frontman permanently the following season.
Not many supporters lost any sleep over Pukki’s departure but since leaving Celtic, the Finnish star has upped his game and became a more natural goal scorer.
His move to Norwich was the catalyst, the Canaries assessed the sort of chances their players were creating and thought Teemu would be the perfect fit. It turned out to be a spot on assessment, with the forward helping to fire Norwich back to the Premier League.
This season, Teemu has 11 Premier League goals in 28 appearances within a side who is struggling. To put his contributions into perspective, Norwich have only scored 25 goals all season in the league.
Speaking about Teemu, the Celtic captain recalled his time at Celtic Park and said he would take the forward back.
“He was quiet at Celtic. He always worked hard and put defenders under pressure.” Brown told the Pinkun.
“But when he first came he didn’t look like a natural goalscorer.
“When I see him playing with Norwich, he’s obviously had that little bit more experience, he’s flying.
“For a natural goalscorer, I would take Pukki because no matter what you always need one of them. We’ve got Griff [Leigh Griffiths] just now, and Odsonne [Edouard] who can produce that, but you can never have enough firepower.
“He [Pukki] was quiet but a really nice man. Every morning he used to wear the same terrible adidas trainers. They were about eight year old… his barnet was shocking as well!
“When he played for us he didn’t get that much game time, he didn’t get many opportunities. He didn’t probably score the amount of goals that we hoped he would score. He’s went away though and done phenomenal, fair play. He could have ended up falling down the leagues and doing whatever.
“But he’s fought, and fitness was never an issue with him anyway because he was like a Duracell Bunny, he would just keep running.
“I would definitely take Pukki.”
