Dominic Solanke: “To sign for a club like Tottenham is everything I’ve wanted”
Sat 10 August 2024, 23:08|
Tottenham Hotspur
Dominic Solanke feels his own ambitions and values match those of the club after joining us from AFC Bournemouth on Saturday.
The striker, who has plenty of Premier League experience to his name, has signed a contract until 2030 after five years on the south coast, which included a stand-out campaign last term where he netted 21 goals in 42 games across all competitions.
“It means so much – to sign for a club like Tottenham is everything I’ve wanted really. It’s a magnificent club, a huge club with ambitions that match mine so I’m delighted to start and meet all the boys,” he said. “What excites me most about the club is how ambitious it is. It has a great manager, great players and I feel like it suits my style of play as well, so I can’t wait to get started and do my stuff on the pitch.
“I think the club has got great depth throughout the squad. The attacking options are great and I think that’s what a top club needs, so I’m really looking forward to playing with those players, competing with them and hopefully we can achieve great things. Obviously Heung-Min Son is a fantastic player, he’s been doing what he’s been doing in the Premier League for many years now and there’s many players like I mentioned before throughout the whole team that have got great qualities. At a big club like Tottenham, you expect to be around great players and I’m looking forward to mingling with them.
“I’m familiar with James Maddison, we’ve spent some time at England together, he’s a top guy, obviously a great player as well so he’s one familiar face that I already know and I’m excited to meet the rest of the boys as well. Wellsy and Burchy (coaches Matt Wells and Rob Burch) are great guys as well who helped me a lot when I was at Bournemouth, so I’m looking forward to working with them again. I can’t wait to start with the team to be honest – the season is not far away so I’m sure that the boys will make me feel welcome and we can learn about each other very quickly but, like I mentioned earlier, I feel like the style of play definitely suits me so I’m looking forward to gelling with everyone.”
Dominic came through the system at Chelsea and after spells with Vitesse in the Netherlands, at Liverpool and latterly Bournemouth, he feels he’s well equipped to take on the challenge of leading the line for us.
“Me as a player, I’m ambitious on the pitch, I work hard for the team, score goals, leave it all out there and love winning, so hopefully we can win a few things together. That’s what I’m going to bring, that fighting spirit,” he said. “I’d say my attributes are movement, goals, hard work and link-up play, so hopefully I can bring all that together at Tottenham.”
As seen in some of his goal celebrations – and indeed in his official reveal video here at Spurs – Dominic is a huge fan of anime, the distinctive artwork that originates from Japan. He even visited Tokyo during his summer holidays, although his trip occurred prior to our own stop-off in the Japanese capital as part of our recent pre-season tour.
“Last season I had quite a few anime celebrations,” he explained. “I’m a huge anime fan, I love watching it in my spare time, love speaking to my friends about it, I thought it was something different last year and it’s something I’m quite passionate about, so I wanted to kind of mix it in with the football stuff. I’d scored a few at the start of the season and I wanted to switch up my celebration so we were just talking and we thought an anime celebration would be cool, so I did it and to be fair I didn’t realise how many anime fans there were out there! A lot of people liked it so I kind of stuck with it. It’s definitely something that I’d like to carry on doing.”
