Apparently Afobe is on the verge of a move to Birmingham or Bristol City on loan for the season. How do you feel about him going out? Is it a good move for him? Was he ever going to get playing time this season with RvP, Giroud, Pod, Chamakh, Park, Theo & Gervinho all ahead of him for the central striker position?
great move for him. He and gnabry are my favourite youth players. Heres an extract from his recent performance against greece in the euro u19 match (in case you're wondering the other outstanding performer the para is referring to is ross barkley of everton): Similar things could be said about Afobe- the Arsenal forward didn’t do too much defensively but he looked very sharp and lively when he was near the ball in the Greeks final third, not forgetting the goal he scored early in the second half. The forward made several lovely moves, almost resulting in scoring the equaliser earlier in the game but eventually he won the penalty, which Robert Hall would later have saved by the Greek goalkeeper- as noted earlier. His abilities were obvious, he was seen turning the full backs and delivering dangerous balls into the box on more than one occasion and he generally looked bright, instinctive and pacey throughout the game.
oh and him an campbell make me raise concerns about why we need niang....irrespective of how highly rated he is on football manager!
We really do have alot of good young players on the verge of breaking into the 1st team, miyachi campbell afobe aneke bartley and soon gnarby. I think that after this loan move afobe will be able to step into the 1st team and i expect miyachi and campbell to feature at some point during this season aswel.
Afobe was never going to get much of a game here this season, and he has to actually play a bit more in the Championship before we consider putting him in the team as he only played a handful of games for Reading last year.
Think the reason we might want to loan him at the start of the season is because hopefully he can bed in quickly at his new team and actually get some serious game time. Last year he went to Reading and they already had a winning and set team, so he could not get anywhere near their starting line up.
Where do you get this from? He's been poor everywhere he's played and he's 19 - if he was going to be a top player he'd surely have been semi-impressive at some level by now?
I'd try to have a reasonable discussion with you but you I can tell it'd clearly be a waste of everybody's time. Next time somebody disagrees with you, instead of launching into a tirade of "you're a moron, LOL!" and numerous other slants on the other person's intelligence (despite having no knowledge of me at all), try acting like an adult? All I'll say is, I've probably seen him play in person more times than you have. I'm certainly not clueless. I'm sorry I offended you, now please calm down.
I didn't act like a moron just because I disagreed with you, my word! As that's all I did, that's clearly what you're referring to - do you call everybody who disagrees with you a moron? Or only those of other teams, so of (you assume) lesser knowledge than you? I didn't say he wasn't a bright prospect with a potentially bright career ahead of him - but a top, exceptional, absolutely lethal striker? Do you not think you were getting perhaps a little bit carried away?
You're overreacting quite a lot here - seriously, calm down and act your age. He was poor for Huddersfield - at least, by the description of a "lethal striker" where lethal is certainly not a phrase I'd use to describe him. He played in league one, and from knowing league one very well, I can say that physical players often look impressive. Afobe is impressive physically but still failed to flourish and was far from one of the highlights of the division. Granted, his record for England U17s and U19s is impressive, but, er, it's U17 and U19. Hardly a top standard of football and you perhaps have to question why he's not playing for the U21s if he's regarded as such a talent to beyond his years? I think he can have a bright career even though he's been poor so far, that shouldn't be too hard to understand. What I disagree with is your assertion that he'll be a top, exceptional, lethal etc etc striker, implying (though perhaps not by your use of "top") that he'll be among the best in the world. I really fail to understand how you could attempt to say, objectively, that based on the evidence presented in his career to this date that he's on track to become incredible, barring a sudden extremely dramatic increase. I'm not saying he's a horrendous player with no upside destined for a career struggling to get into the first team for Eastbourne Borough. I'm just saying I'm confident he won't be the next Henry as you seem to be expecting.
I wasn't offended, I was simply trying to keep any sort of discussion revolving around the player, rather than revolving around anger at a disagreement At Huddersfield he was helped very much by players who are technically very good (Pilkington while he wasn't crippled, Rhodes, to lesser levels Arfield, Roberts etc), thus being a good physical player they were able to utilise him. However when I saw him play against us, we dismantled their entire team and as such he didn't have the other players to rely on giving him service so looked stranded and clueless on the ball. This was over a year ago so I have little doubt he's matured since then, but still, he's played almost no first team football since then, too. If he spends the year struggling to get into the Birmingham side then I don't see him being any different to the hoards of players before him (like, as you mentioned, JET and Simpson) whose careers are far from what was originally expected of them. No player at his age is a done deal - at 18 Michael Owen looked like he was going to write his name alongside the likes of Pele, Maradona, Cruijff among the greatest to have played the game. There have been plenty before him at Arsenal, more hyped than he is - wasn't Carlos Vela expected to be the next big thing? (this isn't just an Arsenal thing - Gio dos Santos, Freddy Adu etc). From what I've seen of Afobe, and from what I know of the level he's played at, I just don't see anything special that makes me believe he'll be as lethal as you're expecting. Of course, as a fan of football, I hope to be proved wrong because it's always nice to see players who set the world alight
