I’ve nothing to prove to Arsenal, says Bournemouth’s Afobe

Afobe has scored three goals in his last three games for Bournemouth after signing from Wolves in a reported £10million transfer in January.

Afobe, 22, came up through the youth ranks at Arsenal but was not given a chance in the first team by manager Arsene Wenger, and the striker could come back to haunt his former team when he plays them for the first time this weekend.

“It’s been years now”, Afobe added. “We had Robin van Persie, players like that, so I gave him authorisation to go somewhere and play, which he did”.

“At six you’re still a young boy, a baby. really”.

“You know where you come from so after you might be more ready to face difficulties at the highest level”.

“That’s modern football for you so I don’t feel I have a job for life at all”. Bournemouth’s form had been good over the last few weeks and had lost only one of their last six games in all competitions.

The list of strikers to have made a competitive appearance for Arsenal over the past three seasons includes Yaya Sanogo, Park Chu-young, Nicklas Bendtner and Marouane Chamakh but when Benik Afobe takes to the pitch in front of Arsene Wenger for the first time on Sunday, he will do so in the black and red stripes of Bournemouth.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference, Howe was wary of setting such a specific points targets for his side, but maintains the club are on the right track to securing their Premier League status.

Arsenal, meanwhile, are scoreless during that same stretch and Afobe could heap more misery on Wenger if he further dents Arsenal’s faltering title push.

“We’re going to see how it’s going to be but we need to keep our heads up and keep working on what we are doing well”. Three draws and a loss on the bounce has put their title challenge in jeopardy and dropped them to fourth place, behind Manchester City, Leicester City, and rivals Tottenham.

‘When they do not manage to play for us, if they do it somewhere else, we are, of course, very happy for them. Palace did however beat Stoke in the FA Cup three days earlier after Wilf Zaha scored a wonderful solo goal to send them into the fifth round.