Report: Solanke to leave Chelsea as contract talks end

Highly rated Chelsea teenage talent Dominic Solanke is set to leave Stamford Bridge after contract talks between him and the club reportedly met an impasse.

Solanke, 19, demanded a wage raise from £7,000 to £50,000 a week and a promise of regular football, reports the Evening Standard's Simon Johnson. With Chelsea apparently unwilling to meet those conditions, the forward will likely leave in the summer when his contract expires.

Chelsea is guaranteed compensation worth at least £8 million due to provisions concerning academy-raised players who exit before age 24, so there's little impetus for the Premier League leader to hold onto the player who joined its Under-8s side in 2004.

Solanke made his first-team debut with the club as a 17-year-old during a Champions League tilt with Maribor in 2014, and has since failed to break through with the senior side. Without a first-team appearance since the match with the Slovenian minnow, Solanke spent an erratic loan spell with Chelsea feeder side Vitesse Arnhem and failed to feature in the Blues' League Cup fixtures despite being included on the team sheet for three of them.

With strikers Diego Costa and summer signing Michy Batshuayi already on the books and on-loan Tammy Abraham starring this season at Bristol City, Solanke has become surplus to requirements for the capital club.

Ahead of Chelsea's weekend FA Cup match with Wolves, manager Antonio Conte conceded uncertainty over Solanke's future.

"I don't know (if he will leave)," Conte said, according to ESPN FC's Jack Rathborn. "I should have a crystal ball to tell you his future.

"For sure Solanke is a Chelsea player, (but) in the future I don't know his future."