Solanke showing his elite credentials as Bournemouth man faces ex club Liverpool

Dominic Solanke has always had it. His scoring touch made him a rising star in Chelsea's academy and with England's youth teams. It earned him a move to Liverpool at 19 and a senior international debut before he had even started a Premier League game.

But it is only now, at 26, that all that shimmering potential is finally being fulfilled. Only Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah have scored more goals in the Premier League this season. Solanke, on 12, has already doubled his tally for the whole of last term.

His performances have helped propel Bournemouth up the table but Solanke was scoring even in the awkward early months of the campaign, when supporters were bracing for a relegation fight.

His form was rewarded with a new contract in September but, inevitably, suitors are hovering. Arsenal and Newcastle have been linked. They are not the only ones in the market for a striker, either.

It should, of course, come as little surprise that a player whose entire footballing education took place in the confines of elite clubs now looks capable of returning to that level.

But Solanke has been through a lot to get to this point. Agonising goal droughts. Two years in the second tier. As recently as July, Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola was fielding questions about the possibility of signing a replacement.

"I remember I was being asked about another No 9, because he wasn't scoring this amount of goals," recalled the Spaniard recently. "But I was thinking that it's going to be very, very difficult for us to sign someone better than Dom."

Iraola has downplayed his own role in Solanke's transformation this season. "It is not that we have changed the player," he told Sky Sports after the striker's hat-trick against Nottingham Forest.

"He