Spurs have Skipp in their step as Oliver steps up

IT WAS late July, the day before Tottenham’s penultimate pre-season friendly, when Oliver Skipp went up for a header with a team-mate in training and was caught painfully as they landed.

- Dan Kilpatrick

Skipp was left with a deep cut in his foot, requiring several stitches, and the wound was so gruesome that several of his team-mates had to look away as he received treatment on the Hotspur Way pitches.

The midfielder also suffered a hairline fracture to his heel, and would not return to action until October, as a substitute in Spurs’s north London derby defeat at Arsenal.

For Skipp, the freak injury was terribly timed. The 22-year-old was on the way to proving his fitness to Antonio Conte after spending the second half of last season sidelined with a niggling pelvis injury, which sent the Spurs head coach to war with the club’s medical staff.

Before then, Skipp had been an important player for Conte, starting nine of the Italian’s first 12 games in charge, but his pelvis problem, coupled with the January signing of Rodrigo Bentancur, meant Spurs quickly moved on without him.