Benik Afobe has joined MK Dons on a season long loan deal.
The youngster, once tipped for big things at Arsenal, has had loan spells at Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday in the past, and is expected to make his Dons Debut tonight against Leicester City.
Speaking to their official site, he said, “I’m really pleased. As soon as I spoke to the manager I knew this is what I wanted to do. It was an easy decision for me.
“I’m a striker who will hopefully score a few goals, I’ve got good pace and I link to link-up with the midfielders and wingers.
“I’m just really looking forward to getting going now. I just want to play games and help this team out as much as I can.”
With the signing of Alexis Sanchez, the development of Yaya Sanogo and the emergence of 18 year old Chuba Akpom, Afobe’s chances of making it at Arsenal look very slim indeed.
However, we wish him the best of luck with the MK Dons.
Good luck indeed, let’s hope he has a good season at the MK Dons
For a while now I’ve wondered why our academy and youth set-up paled in comparisons to the likes of Southampton and clubs from other leagues, but it seems that’s a false notion. While those clubs have more of their academy players play in their first teams, that’s primarily because they compete on a lower level then us, and also simply have less players. Therefore, their young guns get more regular playing time in top leagues, while developing at a quicker rate. Necessity does indeed breed invention it seems in football. Now here’s to Wenger giving our crowley’s, akpom’s and gnabry’s… Read more »
Sorry about the ramble, just making sense of it to myself.
Fantastic point – and its one of the reasons I actually, genuinely, look forward to seeing us in the League Cup. It is one of the few occasions, bar the odd FA Cup game, where we see some of the young/academy players actually play.
Hopefully a loan will help him develop further,a nd come back to fight for a first team place.
It’d be a shame to see him do an Eisfield and get snapped up by another team…
He’s at the end if his contract so after this loan I think it’s curtains for him – a bit like Aneke. Odd, I had thought a few years ago that those two would take the first team by storm but a combo of us shopping at Harrods rather than Tesco and the vigour of youth not necessarily translating into the adult game (Afobe’s been unlucky with injuries too, but then so has Sanogo) has overridden that. It’ll be interesting to see what we do with our latest prospects – Hayden, Bellerin, Zelalem and Akpom could follow Gnabry and make… Read more »
Sadly he’s had injuries stifle his progress. I personally think the time to get into the first team has passed him by. With Giroud, Podolski, Walcott, Sanchez, and now Akpom and Sanogo, I think the time has come for Afobe to consider his long-term options. Shame really, he looked really promising.
I remember his days in the youth squad when he had an actual telepathic relationship on the pitch with Chuks Aneke…..shame injuries hampered his progress, especially at the start of last season. Hope he has a long career
I wish we could add a “minimum games played” clause to these loan deals where if the player players a certain number of minutes/games the loanee team gets some money back from the fee. We’ve had too many players go on loan only to have their growth stunted by not playing enough.
This is actually a very good idea, basically it could be done in a way where there is an economic incentive for the other club. Something like “you want this player to be a squad/extra player, you pay his entire salary, the more he plays the larger percentage of that salary Arsenal pays”
This might actually backfire, unless the monetary incentives are BIG enough
I quote a story from the book ‘freakonomics’ : a creche had parents coming late to pick up their kids inconveniencing the creche staff. They imposed a 5 dollar penalty for late comers. More parents started coming late! The monetary penalty made them feel like they are paying for coming late, whereas in the earlier case morally they used to come earlier.
Not quite the same. The more they play him then the less it costs them (MKdons in this case).
Also I’ve seen the ‘crèche’ fines effect and it has to have a rising scale or the parents take the mick.
My former wife ran a daycare some time ago, and the late fee was on a rising scale. We had a lot of $5 penalties for being 1-15 minutes late, but no-one ever paid the $20 penalty for 16-30 minutes late more than once!
Mark Randall threading through balls for Afobe to tuck away like our 2008 youth team.
I live in mk so il keep a good eye on him!!
My first thought was ‘why a 1st division team rather than a championship team’ but I guess he’s much more likely to get a run of games (injuries permitting) and that’s exactly what he needs. A few games, a bit of confidence and he could easily become very hot property. Lets hope he regains his ‘youth’ form.
Also, any MK Dons fans out there can tell me if this is nonsense, but I am sure they have a good, strong youth set up there. There are a number of players that are being touted for prem clubs, and i think they just had one of their defenders join Everton. Of all the clubs in those tiers, it seems that they are perhaps following the southampton/swansea model and looking to build their way up through the leagues.* *I fully appreciate the fact they are a franchise club and that it was a disgrace what happened to Wimbledon, before… Read more »
I also had a season long loan deal at MK Dons when i was 17, on FIFA…
Also whenever MK Dons have had loans from prem clubs(couple of chelsea players) they’ve always played them regardless of form. So I think there would be an agreement on playing time. That and they had to give Bamford back to Chelsea and have signed no one really this summer. Dons also try and play football the right way for a team in league 1. So here’s hoping.
Best of luck to him, whether he makes the grade with us or not. He’s had a hellish time with injuries and if he can steer clear of them and advance this season you never know.
Akpom has been impressive in pre-season plus he has added plenty of height.
Campbell has been even more impressive over last season with Olympiakos and in the world cup plus in pre-season and will liklely now add an option for us up top to Giroud.
There is also Sanogo whose confidence at least has found his feet with four goals.
Afobe is in the shop window because of this.
Don’t mean to critisize what we’ve done this summer in terms of transfer dealings but when you really look at things we’ve replaced Sagna for debuchy, chambers seems like he could be a great back up CB to replace TV, Ospina replaces fabianski…with that being said we’ve really only added sanchez. I do believe we have a chance to win the PL but I think we really need atleast 1 more signing to solidify things? Any thoughts?
with akpom and sanogo wenger’s prefered youngster…hes not arsenal future anymore