Arsenal coach claims one Hale End talent should have had better career than Harry Kane

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Harry Kane was once part of the Arsenal youth setup, but he never made it at the club before eventually becoming a Tottenham Hotspur legend.

The striker now plays for Bayern Munich, and will return to North London in the upcoming Champions League tie as Arsenal aim to reach the semi-finals.

Despite not winning a major trophy, Kane has had a strong career, as the all-time top scorer for Spurs, and one of England’s finest strikers, but Arsenal could have had their own equivalent.

Former youth product Benik Afobe was very highly rated when he came through at Hale End, but injuries stunted his progress, and he never made it at the top level.

Benik Afobe was better than Harry Kane at Arsenal youth level

Arsenal youth coach Dan Buck, who worked with both players at youth level when they were developing, has now admitted to Hale End Productions that when they were growing up, Afobe was a bigger talent than Kane.

“I was never Harry Kane’s head coach but I’ve kind of been in and around and coached him. I’ve coached him more when he was at Arsenal originally because we had quite a lot of players at 9,” he explained.

“It was relentless. We would do so many games every week, we played local teams and it’s one of the ways that we’ve recruited back in the day as well, of getting local teams in, seeing the players and everything like that.

“The Saturday players were the players that might not 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.

“Harry was in that Saturday group a little bit more often, with me, and 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 a better career than Afobe, people would have thought you were mad.”

Harry Kane and Benik Afobe Arsenal struggles show development is not linear

Both players became Premier League-level strikers, with Afobe hitting a strong run of form with Bournemouth in between his injury struggles.

Neither player would make it at Arsenal, with Afobe failing to ever make an official debut despite being highly rated at academy level.

Kane’s struggles at Arsenal, before he grew at a later age, show that development is not linear when it comes to young players. The most promising talents may fail to make it, whilst some may slip under the radar.