An Arsenal coach has now been sharing a story of how one youngster was seen as a much better prospect than Harry Kane at the club.
Kane, who obviously went on to be a star Tottenham Hotspur before leaving for Bayern Munich this season, famously started out his youth career with Arsenal.
The striker joined the club when he was eight-years-old, and ended up being released just one year later, and well the rest is history.
Kane joined Tottenham at 11-years-old and went on to score 280 goals in 435 games for Arsenal’s north London rivals.
There’s no doubt that Kane enjoyed most of his development at an older age in comparison to some others, hence why he was let go by Arsenal.
And when speaking on the ‘Away from Hale End’ podcast, Arsenal under-16s coach Dan Buck has now been recalling how former Arsenal favourite Benik Afobe was considered to be twice the prospect.
Afobe, who left Arsenal for £2m when he joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2015, never made a senior appearance for the club despite how well he was regarded at youth level.
Benik Afobe was thought to be a much better talent than Harry Kane at Arsenal
At 31-years-old, and having left Millwall in 2023, Afobe is now playing his football in the UAE for Al-Dhafra FC where he has scored 12 goals in his first 15 games.
And whilst Afobe has enjoyed a successful career himself, there’s simply no comparison to what Kane has achieved.
Explaining the difference in level between the two, Dan Buck said no one saw Kane’s progress coming.
Buck said: “The Saturday players were the players that might not have been in the squad on the Sunday.
“And obviously the Sunday team always had your top players and Benik [Afobe] was in there scoring eight goals every week and stuff like that.
“And Harry [Kane] found himself in that Saturday group a bit more often with me, the poor lad.
“You would never, if someone had said Harry will have, Benik had a good career, but if you look at them two in isolation and say Harry would have had a better career people would have thought you were mad.”
A pretty remarkable story, and one that provides a brief insight into both how brutal academy football can be, and also proving how every player’s path is different, even at Arsenal.
All that being said, and whilst we’re on this trip down memory lane, Ray Parlour has recently been discussing a player he seemed to think was a bit underrated at Arsenal in the past.
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