Prolific Chelsea youth striker demands £50,000-per-week contract, first-team guarantees to stay at the club - report

According to Matt Law of the Telegraph, negotiations between Chelsea and prolific young English striker Dominic Solanke in regards to a contract renewal have stalled due to (fairly outrageous) demands of a £50,000-per-week deal as well as first-team guarantees from the player's father, who has been handling these negotiations. Solanke's current contract ends in June next year.

Perhaps in somewhat related events, Chelsea's football director Michael Emenalo spoke in an interview last week about the need for players and their parents to remain patient when it comes to their chances of playing for the club's first-team as they might not be ready yet to take such a position with high standards and responsibility.

As for the reasons why his father came up to the negotiation table with these requests, it seems to stem from confidence on his son's abilities as well as Solanke's concern over his chances of making it at Chelsea.

[...] [Solanke's] father appears to have treated negotiations as though his son has already proved himself at first-team level while the club value him as a highly promising player with the potential to break through.

[...] Solanke is believed to be concerned that there is not the same pathway for him at Chelsea as Kane has benefitted from at Spurs, although the England international was three years older than Solanke when he became a first-team regular.

-source: Telegraph

Nevertheless, it is reported that Chelsea won't be fazed by those demands even though they wish to keep the striker around.

The 18-year-old striker, after proving clearly far too good for the youth leagues, has recorded 24 appearances and 7 goals for Vitesse Arnhem in the Dutch league this season, and despite the comparisons to Zlatan Ibrahimovic drawn by pundits in the Netherlands towards his playing style, he still seems a step or two from becoming a useful first-team player at Chelsea. It is worrying though, if not entirely surprising*, that one of our brightest Academy prospects doesn't feel as if he has a proper shot of making the team at all, coming up with such demands in these negotiations.

Hopefully we can find a middle ground since losing a home-grown talent like Solanke might come back to haunt us in the near future.

* In recent semi-related developments, 16-year-old Domingos Quina has switched from Chelsea to West Ham, with reports citing his belief that he'll get more opportunities at the Hammers.  While he's not the first nor will he be the last young player to do something like this (or switch to Chelsea instead from somewhere, like, say, Izzy Brown), the timing of the move certainly adds to the narrative against Chelsea's record of youth development.