BOSS Eddie Howe insisted he felt there had been no disrespect behind striker Benik Afobe’s comments or social media output following his return to Wolves.

Afobe sealed a deadline day loan switch back to Molineux where he had scored 23 goals prior to a £10million move to Vitality Stadium in January 2016.

One of the final dealings of the English January transfer window, the 25-year-old said he was “home” after reuniting with the Championship high-fliers.

He also revealed he had been planning a social media update about his return “a week before deadline day”.

A post on Afobe’s official Instagram account shows clips of him scoring goals during his previous spell at Wolves – the first of which is against Cherries in March 2015.

The frontman told the Wolves club website: “Two years ago I left, everyone knows that, it's been good playing at Bournemouth in the Premier League but I'm glad to be home, this feels like home for me.”

In an interview with the Express & Star, the forward said: “I was that sure of coming back I made a video of clips of me scoring Wolves goals to put on Instagram a week before deadline day.

"In my head, I know it's probably not good because you can never be sure and things change, but I was that confident of coming back. To nearly miss the deadline by 10 minutes was going to be heartbreaking.”

Some of Afobe's output has not been well received by a section of Cherries supporters.

Asked whether he felt it was unusual for a player to talk about a homecoming having only moved on loan, Howe told the Daily Echo: “I think it’s difficult. Benik will say what he feels and that’s his right. He feels like he has returned to a club he knows very well.

“Probably a lot of people at the club will maybe feel like family to him. I don’t know, I’m just trying to think of reasons why he may have used that term.

“That is how he feels at this moment in time and I don’t know what else I can really say on it.”

Speaking about the Instagram posts, the Cherries boss added: “It’s difficult for me to comment. That would seem very strange to me but in this modern world with social media and things like that I’m not even quite sure what that means.

“I am sure there is nothing malicious behind it. Knowing Benik, I am sure it’s not meant to be disrespectful towards us.”

Commenting generally about the subject of players on social media, Howe added: “From a manager’s perspective I don’t think there is too much to benefit from it.

“Of course there are exceptions and a lot of players do really good work with charities and highlight awareness of things people are trying to help people with.

“Talking about Instagram and all those other platforms, sometimes they can do a lot of damage for a player’s reputation.

“There’s a lot of people out there waiting for players to make a mistake, which again can be negative. Players have to be very careful nowadays.”