Dominic Solanke: Forward

                                    

                                          
He's the first transfer for this season, but we won't really see him out at Anfield or in Melwood until July 1, when his contract ends with Chelsea and starts with us. Either way, I'm going to tell you as much as I can about him. 
                          
Solanke comes in at 6'1", as tall as Emre Can and Divock Origi but shorter (apparently) than 6'2" Sturridge and 6'3" Marko Grujic. I'll keep saying this until the end of time, but we really are a short club. The people that usually play in our attacking band are 5'11" (Firmino), 5'7" (Coutinho) and 5'9" (Mané). These aren't good numbers to mess around with when Milner or Clyne have only the option to cross and one of the three are covered by a centre back like David Luiz or it's just a team like West Brom. I get that he's not going to be for very long, but if he gets Woodburn/TAA-like numbers, it will be good to have someone tall and ready to head it in as well as good with his feet. 
                          
For a lack of better comparisons, he reminds me of Sturridge, but not a whole lot. There's something there with it, but not wholly there. To start, he plays with the ball practically in-between his feet, or at least very close to him. It's not to say that he can't dribble, far from it. He looks very good with the ball at his feet and dribbles as if he's professionally older than he truly is. With that, he's also very quick with his feet as shown in the video by his quick one or two-touch movement and passing. He makes himself and the rest of the team look faster, which I was afraid that he wouldn't be able to do coming from a club like Chelsea who, to me, play slower than we do only for the sake of defensive responsibilities or whatever it is that Chelsea fans say for their reason on not playing as silky and quick as we and Tottenham do, even with a similar premise. What I do enjoy most about him, though, is his confidence on goal. On one clip in the video, the commentator said that Solanke simply made something out of nothing, a thing that is also said about Sturridge. I enjoy this confidence because it's something that prolific strikers have in them because this is a trait that can't be taught, it's simply just there. 
                          
What to expect from Solanke is not much, really. He didn't get a single match this season with Chelsea, probably one of the main driving force for him to not sign another contract with Chelsea, as he thought they may not be taking him seriously by loaning him out repeatedly and not letting him get a moment of first time play, getting one match with Chelsea in the three seasons he had been in the first team with them. Whatever you hear from Chelsea fans like "He has a big ego because he demanded too much at a young age and too much money, too." Is simply not right. Chelsea isn't a very good club for bringing up youth, no matter how talented they could be like Reuben Loftus-Cheek or our very own Solanke and loan them out at every waking chance they get and not giving them a chance. An example of this could be Lucas Piazon who started bright but didn't get the direction he needed from the manager at the time from Chelsea and kind of wasted away. The wages problem was made up by the Telegraph, which was stupid on their part. 
                          
Around the same age as Ejaria and Ojo, I do think he'll be able to help the U23s. Not scoring at every waking moment, but he did get he did get 7 goals in 26 appearances in the Eredivisie, so I feel like he will do well and get first team minutes. I wish him some good luck so he can prove Chelsea wrong. 
                          
You can talk about Dom's potential down in the comments!