Dominic Solanke was rewarded for the best season of his career in 2023/24 by securing a move to Tottenham this summer.
The 26-year-old scored 19 Premier League goals for Bournemouth and then Tottenham paid a club-record transfer for his services.
Solanke is regarded as an all-round centre-forward, who isn’t just a goalscorer, but he can contribute from outside of the penalty box too, with his hold-up play, passing, pressing, off-the-ball movement and link-up play.
What also needs to be highlighted about his game is how he presses and defends from the front. A key reason why Ange Postecoglou added Solanke to his all-action system.
But there are certain attributes, both in this latest version of EA FC and the previous version, that Solanke simply isn’t happy about.
He was going through his rating and what he thought of each one from his pace to his physicality.
Overall, he has gone from a rating of 74 in EA 24 to a pretty big upgrade of 81, with his 19 league goals playing a huge part in that.
But Solanke was honest enough to analyse his own passing and defending on the game, including how it’s better than the game suggests.
He was rated 64 for his passing last year and he admitted ‘that’s bad’, before being told that it has been upgraded by two, but he openly stated ‘still not happy’, as he told Premier League.
As a striker, you aren’t going to be given much of a rating for your defending, but even Spurs’ new hitman was surprised by his ‘crazy’ rating of 28 from the previous edition and how it had only gone up by one.
Dominic Solanke’s passing and defending
Solanke was told: “Now, we have passing, before you were 64, what do you think about that, as a striker, I feel they rate a little bit low for a striker.”
“64? That’s bad man,” responded Tottenham’s record transfer. “64! Yeah, anything below 64 is a little bit heartbreaking, to be honest.” Solanke is then told that he has been given a rating of 66 for his passing in EA 25, he responded by saying: “Still not too happy with that one.”
Attention then turned to his defending stats: “That’s crazy,” responded Solanke to his 28-rated defending from the previous year. “I work hard you know. I like pressing. So, to be that low, it’s downplaying it a little bit. Oh Gosh, plus one? (Rated 29 on EA 25). Oh, well. I will take the defending.”
Tottenham v Arsenal
The main headline in the build-up to the north London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal is the situation around Martin Odegaard getting injured on national duty.
The issue for Mikel Arteta is that he was already heading into this game contemplating how he was going to map out his midfield.
READ MORE: Jamie O’Hara hits out at ‘moaning’ Arsenal ahead of Tottenham game amid news about £30m star
Declan Rice got suspended before the international break, so that’s two key midfield players out of the picture for Arsenal and you would presume it’s a big boost for the home team.
But Tottenham themselves will be hoping Solanke and Micky van de Ven are ready to start because they were absent for their last fixture.
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