Arsenal youngster Benik Afobe has parted ways with the club and will be joining Wolverhampton Wanderers in a deal that is believed to be close to A?2 million.
Benik Afobe was one of the young stars from the Academy that was seen as a player that would make the cut to the first team. However, Arsenal have always been rich in terms of the excellent forward players, and with the recent signings of Danny Welbeck and Olivier Giroud, Afobea s chances of making it were that much more harder.
However, there is no doubt that Afobe is a talented player, and the Wolves manager Kenny Jackett was of the same opinion about the 21 year old.
He said, a I watched him come through at Arsenal and watched his progress up to the current time and we feel, at 21, he fits into the bracket we are looking for that can improve us.
a He is on a good run, a very good run and has got over his injury problems. He has proved an asset for MK Dons, has a good goalscoring record in League One and he is ready now to step up to try the challenge of Championship football, which many of our players have done this year.
a He has the pace, power and goal-scoring record that we need. He will help us in the second half of this season and the years to come.a
Kenny would have quite a good idea about Afobe, considering he also took him on loan at Millwall. And after the fantastic game he had against Manchester United for MK Dons in the League Cup, where he scored 2 goals, his star certainly rose.
He was already highly rated at Arsenal, but unfortunately, he got injured at the wrong time, and so could not get the look-in that he may have deserved. However, his goal scoring record speaks for itself, especially with MK Dons, where he scored 19 goals in 30 appearances. For a young striker, that is a very good return.
Though MK Dons is in a lower tier to Wolves, Afobe wouldna t find it that hard to acclimatize to the jump in quality, especially having played for so long at Arsenal and even training with the first team. Hopefully, it will be the signing that the Wolves need, especially as Bakary Sako is unavailable due to his commitments in the African Nations Cup, and all the goal scoring burden falling on Nouha Dicko.