For a long time, the best player at the 2017 Under-20 World Cup looked incapable of realising his potential but he is now flying at Bournemouth

On September 16, 2017, Liverpool played out a 1-1 draw with Burnley at Anfield. It was a negative result for the Reds, but manager Jurgen Klopp took comfort in the one big positive: a lively cameo from second-half substitute Dominic Solanke, the 20-year-old striker who had only just joined the club from Chelsea and very nearly won the game for his new club with a late effort that struck the bar.

"It's exciting, absolutely exciting. I'm really happy to have him around. He's a wonderful kid," Klopp told reporters. "He takes the minutes – each minute – as an opportunity. That's the benefit of [his] age.

"When you are this age and you didn't play so often in the Premier League, then it's a Premier League game in the stats, whether it's one minute, two minutes, it's five, it's 20. He doesn't care too much about this and you can see this – he's full of joy and quality."

The sense of excitement surrounding Solanke eventually gave way to frustration, though. He scored just one goal for Liverpool, which arrived at the end of his only full season at Anfield, with Solanke sold midway through his second, to Bournemouth.

A lot has happened since then, but the Solanke that Liverpool will go up against at the Vitality Stadium this weekend is finally looking like the complete centre-forward that Klopp – and indeed Jose Mourinho – believed he was destined to become.

Getty Debut under Mourinho

Solanke was a genuine phenomenon at under-age level. He won two FA Youth Cups and a UEFA Youth League title with an outstanding Chelsea side that also featured Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham.

Mourinho even went so far as to say that if Solanke didn't become an England international during his time in charge of Chelsea, it would mean that he had failed the centre-forward. It was, as Solanke told GOAL, "a nice thing to hear from a top manager like Mourinho", who also made the Reading native the youngest Chelsea player to appear in the Champions League when he brought him on in a group game against Maribor in October 2014. However, it would be the only appearance he would ever make for the Blues.

"I'd had a couple of really good seasons in the youth team, and I wanted to test myself in the men's game," he explained to GOAL, "but it was so difficult to make that transition, especially back then." Indeed, at the time, Chelsea were renowned for not only producing promising players – but also blocking their path to the senior squad.

Consequently, Solanke decided against extending his stay at Stamford Bridge, opting instead to join Premier League rivals Liverpool in the summer of 2017. "They’re such a big club and I knew they wanted to give young players opportunities," he said. "I think that's what drove me to go there."

AdvertisementGetty Stuck behind Salah, Firmino & Mane

The problem at Anfield, though, was the competition for places was even more intense, as Liverpool had just assembled a frontline of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane that would eventually prove itself arguably the finest attacking triumvirate the Premier League has ever seen.

Despite an encouraging start to his Reds career, with Solanke still buoyed by his Golden Ball-winning exploits during England's Under-20 World Cup triumph, his only goal of the 2017-18 season arrived in the final-weekend rout of Brighton.

He didn't feature at all for Liverpool during the first half of the following campaign, with injuries becoming a major issue. As Klopp subsequently lamented, whenever an opportunity arose for Solanke to start, more often than not he was sidelined by one of a series of niggling injuries.

So, when Bournemouth bid £19 million ($25m) for Solanke's services during the 2019 January transfer window, everyone involved felt it was an offer too good to turn down.

Getty 'Right to go' to Bournemouth

"For Dom, it was absolutely right to go," Klopp acknowledged. "He trained pretty well, but you cannot stay confident over that long a period [without playing], especially not in his age group. He didn't play a lot for Chelsea and so he needed to play football now."

It was a view shared by Solanke. Still, while his move to Liverpool may not have gone according to plan, he has always insisted that he does “not have any regrets”.

"The front three when I was there were just phenomenal – I don’t think anyone would have got in ahead of them," he pointed out to GOAL. "I wasn't as prolific as I am now, so that played a part as well, but it was always going to be difficult to break into a top team with quality players like that.

"And I enjoyed my time there. I learned a lot. I was around some really nice people and top players. But I just wanted to go out and play. Bournemouth attracted me with their style of play and the manager at the time (Eddie Howe). I just felt it was the right step for me."

Getty More 'complete' forward

It has certainly turned out that way, but Solanke also struggled for a long time at Bournemouth. It took him a year – and 39 games – to score his first Premier League goal for the club. Those were tough times, particularly as Bournemouth ended up being relegated at the end of the 2019-20 season. But dropping down to the Championship proved a blessing in disguise for Solanke, as did Howe's departure.

Under the current Newcastle boss, Solanke was deployed mostly as a No.10. But he played mainly as a No.9 in the Championship, and to great effect – most notably under Scott Parker during the 2021-22 season, which saw Solanke score 29 times as Bournemouth secured promotion back to the Premier League.

"The style of play, the new manager and his staff coming in has definitely helped me," he said at the time. "It's all just clicked, and I think you can see that with the goals I'm getting."

Solanke looked ready to return to the top flight. He believed he had become a "more complete" forward, and quickly set about proving it.