Benik Afobe

lofty1971 said:
I don’t know what’s happened to Afobe. I remember he was highly thought of at Arsenal (but was then released) and his pace and finishing at MK Dons made him stand out.

He since seems to have lost both the pace and the finishing from his game which is why he’s not really come good (yet or maybe never).

Either way I wish him the best as he scored some key goals for the Championship promotion campaign and always worked hard (despite some saying not).
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Arsenal didn't release him, he was on loan at Franchise then Wolves paid £2million for him.

He scored plenty of goals for both, mainly running in behind or into the channels, very similar to Grabban and Wilson in the Championship. Which was why he initially looked like a great buy.
 
£2.5M odd profit on a failed and disruptive striker, that has to be the best bit of business in the club's history.

Also shows Wolves are doing a Newcastle and spent big to get up but aren't looking for anything more than survival. They'll be another team with a bigger budget than us but I think that covers all but a couple of our rivals.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!
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“Now to sort out who to play out of Defoe, Wilson, King, Mousset . . .”

More like how to get the best out of our strikers.

Defoe we know will score goals, his record, including playing for England is proof enough.
 
lofty1971 said:
I don’t know what’s happened to Afobe. I remember he was highly thought of at Arsenal (but was then released) and his pace and finishing at MK Dons made him stand out.

He since seems to have lost both the pace and the finishing from his game which is why he’s not really come good (yet or maybe never).

Either way I wish him the best as he scored some key goals for the Championship promotion campaign and always worked hard (despite some saying not).
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Lofty

I must have missed something there cause I didn’t see him play for us in the championship! Or did he score important goals against other promotion chasing teams?
 
Benik moving on is fine good luck to him. Of bigger concern is that like Murray he didn't fit our system and we still can't get the "fits" into the system right.
 
Well I wish Benik well. He scored some vital goals for us and made a real difference when he first arrived. He also had a really good all round game, including defensively at set pieces or in the closing stages of games when defending points. I also don't think it was a coincidence that Joshua King scored so many goals when playing just behind him for a number of games. He also seemed a nice bloke.

Just not calm enough when presented with a goal scoring opportunity at the top level.
 
In baseball, we have the term soft hands for players that can receive the ball with their hands acting like shock absorbers. Always smooth and very calm looking. Opposite is board hands - guys who often have the ball clang off their gloves. Almost an inherent skill, hard to teach. Benik had board feet - he often had good scoring chances but his first touches were a mess. He is a big guy but didn't seem to use that to his advantage. Liked him while we had him, hope he does well next season just not against us.
 
billythekid said:
Joined us in the January of the first season in the Premier League, scoring in three games out of his first four.
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If you want to summerise Afobe in stats let me give you the only stat about Afobe that matters big chance conversion.

Opta define a big chance as
"A situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range."

Big chances scored: 8
Big chances missed: 19

Which means he's twice as likely to fail to score!

By comparison Callum Wilson has 11 scored and 10 missed (mostly in the last couple of months!) and King has 21 scored to 7 missed. Finally, just for giggles Ake has scored 4 and missed 5.
 
The bloke maybe daft as a brush but I'll have a soft spot for him due to the away win at Palace when he first came to us. That was 100% down to him bossing their back four. I thought then that he would be great but perhaps we tried to coach him into being someone else.

I think compare him to Benteke and he he was always a decent buy. What's his stats for us compared to Benteke at Palace? And not £32 million either. Sold on at a profit. Good luck to him
 
Kudos said:
If you want to summerise Afobe in stats let me give you the only stat about Afobe that matters big chance conversion.

Opta define a big chance as
"A situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range."

Big chances scored: 8
Big chances missed: 19

Which means he's twice as likely to fail to score!

By comparison Callum Wilson has 11 scored and 10 missed (mostly in the last couple of months!) and King has 21 scored to 7 missed. Finally, just for giggles Ake has scored 4 and missed 5.
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i would be interested in stanislas if it’s easy to find? He has ice in his veins
 
Kudos said:
If you want to summerise Afobe in stats let me give you the only stat about Afobe that matters big chance conversion.

Opta define a big chance as
"A situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range."

Big chances scored: 8
Big chances missed: 19

Which means he's twice as likely to fail to score!

By comparison Callum Wilson has 11 scored and 10 missed (mostly in the last couple of months!) and King has 21 scored to 7 missed. Finally, just for giggles Ake has scored 4 and missed 5.
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That is not "the only stat that matters" arguably the only stat that matters is how many points we picked up whilst he was on the pitch. His goals were crucial to our survival in our first PL season and his partnership with King was crucial in our second.

We got him relatively cheap for a striker, he helped keep us up twice, we sold him for more than we bought him = Good signing.
 
Agree on almost all, not sure 10million was cheap (to us anyway) but we made 5 million profit on him so woohoo
 
cockbeard said:
Agree on almost all, not sure 10million was cheap (to us anyway) but we made 5 million profit on him so woohoo
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I think it is cheap for a PL striker. I don't think it was good or bad value for money because he's quite limited but he did mainly what we needed when we needed it and we can't afford much better in my opinion.

Hopefully next year will prove what a good deal we got on Lys.
 
I think the way he left, including the loan period, has tainted opinions on him. When he arrived, we were all happy enough and initially, he scored some very important goals for us and looked to be a good deal. For whatever reason, his sharpness waned later on and he looked a different player by the time he went.

I've seen him play 'in the flesh' for Wolves, against Hull and he didn't look to clever. No home fan was upset when he was subbed. He looked a step below their better attackers for sure. In other games though, he did score a handful of goals and a couple of them were great finishes. I saw plenty of comments on Twitter from their fans saying he wasn't all that good, now they all seem to think he's quality. They haven't seen him in the PL across the previous year and I don't think he'll be a first choice player for them but both sides seem happy, so fair enough.
 
The way he's left is a real shame. He's a good age and still offered us options, even if he was at best fourth choice.
 
Afobe was funny for us; he missed a boatload of chances but he did have an uncanny ability to get into scoring situations that others couldn't. He seemed to always get such a chance within a minute of coming on as a sub, but he would always miss.
 
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