Worry for Canaries as Pukki picks up injury while playing for Finland

Teemu Pukki tries his luck during the 1-0 defeat at the hands of Stoke City Picture: PAUL CHESTERTON/FOCUS IMAGES Paul Chesterton

Norwich City striker Teemu Pukki is a big doubt for Saturday’s Championship clash at Nottingham Forest after lasting just 12 minutes of Finland’s Nations League match against Greece on Tuesday night.

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The in-form frontman, who had scored three successive winners for his country, had little time to make an impact this time around after picking up a suspected hamstring injury.

He was swiftly replaced by Simon Skrabb and without their star man the Finns had to dig deep before winning 2-0 to move six points clear at the top of Group C 2.

Goals from Pyry Soiri (46) and Glen Kamara (89) settled the issue in Tampere as Pukki was forced to play a watching brief.

Norwich head coach Daniel Farke will now want to get the player checked over as soon as possible with City facing a hectic spell of games starting at the City Ground on Saturday and continuing at home to Aston Villa next Tuesday evening.

At least Farke has an ideal potential replacement in Jordan Rhodes, who has been restricted to a role of the bench in recent weeks.

It was also a disappointing evening for City defender Jamal Lewis who was punished for a mistake as Northern Ireland were beaten 2-0 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Captain Edin Dzeko struck twice to condemn the visitors to a third straight Nations League defeat, with the 27th minute opener coming after Lewis slipped inside the area to gift possession to Edin Visca who played in Dzeko to apply a calm finish.

Gavin Whyte came off the bench for Northern Ireland just before the hour, but what could have been the perfect instant impact was instead a shocking miss.

The Oxford man rose to meet Stuart Dallas’ cross at the far post and, although his effort was saved the ball fell for him to apply what looked to be an easy finish into an open net.

Instead he fired straight on to the post from point-blank range.

And Northern Ireland were made to pay moments later. The defence was all at sea as Dzeko found himself in acres of space to collect Milan Pjanic’s cross and place his finish into the far corner of the net. It was a result that left the visitors starring relegation in the face.

Timm Klose was an unused substitute as Switzerland won 2-1 in Iceland in Group A2.