Nico Yennaris admits he’s amazed by what Harry Kane has gone on to do, particularly considering Benik Afobe was the main man when all three were in the Arsenal academy.

It’s no secret that as a youngster Kane was in the Arsenal youth team. He played for the u9 squad along with Yennaris and Afobe, among others. After that, he ended up at Tottenham Hotspur, where he’s scored 145 goals so far.

Yennaris, now at last week’s League Cup opponents Brentford, spoke to the media about his memories of his former teammate and what’s happened since. The 25-year-old revealed that back then, the focus was more on Afobe.

“It’s amazing to see where Harry Kane has gone and what he’s gone on to do,” Yennaris admitted. “But you never know and it’s about getting an opportunity and grabbing it with both hands. That’s what he did and he’s never looked back.

“To be fair, when they let him go, we were so young so nobody knew where we would end up and how far we could really go. At my age group, for a lot of the time, it was more about Benik Afobe because he was the main man in our team at the time.”

In defence of Afobe, it’s not as if he hasn’t gone on to be a very good goalscorer as well, despite various injury troubles between then and now. He has five goals this season so far, just like Kane. However, that’s with Stoke in the Championship. His record at the top level doesn’t match up to the Tottenham man.

As Yennaris points out though, there’s no way Arsenal could really have known that. They could only judge on what they could see, and that was that Afobe was the better player at the time.

Even in 2010/11, 10 years later, Afobe was still scoring more goals, with 10 to Kane’s five in that campaign. It was only afterwards things changed; that’s just how it goes sometimes.