Chelsea news: Teenage striker Dominic Solanke 'demands £50,000-a-week' to stay

Striker has seven goals on loan at Vitesse Arnhem this season

Tom Sheen
Tuesday 26 April 2016 10:15 BST
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(Getty)

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Teenage striker Dominic Solanke has demanded a weekly salary of £50,000 and a promise of first-team football if he is to commit to Chelsea, reports state.

The 18-year-old has played just 17 minutes in one appearance for the Blues and has spent this season on loan at Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem, where he is one of five Chelsea youngsters at the club.

Chelsea rate Solanke extremely highly but, according to the Daily Mail, will not be held to ransom by the striker.

He has been at the club since the Under-8 level but, according to the report, his family have grown concerned at the lack of opportunites for young players in west London.

Already an England Under-21, Solanke was a key part of the Chelsea youth team that won the Uefa Youth League, where he was top scorer, and FA Youth Cup in 2014-15, being named Chelsea Academy Player of the Year.

Former manager Jose Mourinho was desperate to keep him around the first-team for 2015-16, but he instead went on loan to the Eredivisie, where he has scored seven goals in 24 matches so far this season.

Speaking last May, Mourinho said: "For Solanke to go out on loan to a Championship team, or to another team in England or Europe, would be a big mistake.

"Staying at Chelsea, training with the first team, having pre-season with the first team, a period as cover to the main strikers, playing every week at U21s and U18's and just go step by step. In a couple of years, a first-team player.

"I think we're doing the right thing. For players like [Ruben] Loftus-Cheek or Solanke, where we know for sure they have the potential to play for Chelsea one day, it's better for them to stay here and develop."

Loftus-Cheek has been around the first-team all season, playing 15 games, although just five of those came when Mourinho was still at the club.

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