Oliver Skipp suffers injury setback, will not feature for Tottenham at Villa

We can’t have good things. A few days ago, Tottenham Hotspur head coach Antonio Conte provided a positive update on the health and fitness of Spurs midfielder Oliver Skipp, who has missed three months with an infection in his groin. In his pre-match press conference ahead of the Newcastle match, Conte had expressed optimism that he’d have Skippy back in full training this week.

Welp. Writing in the Evening Standard, Dan Kilpatrick has poured cold water and crushed all our hopes and dreams, reporting that while he’s still set to sign the new contract that was leaked a couple of days ago, Skipp felt “discomfort” in training yesterday, sparking fears that he just suffered another injury setback. Thanks, Dan. I’m blaming YOU PERSONALLY, DAN.

It’s especially frustrating because Tottenham could use him for the run-in, so any setback like this just makes it less and less likely that we’ll see Skippy play at all for the rest of the season. But from everything I’ve gleaned over the past few weeks, this just sounds like an injury where stuff like this can happen — it’s one that surgery can’t really fix, the only treatment is rest and hope.

So, I guess that’s what we’re gonna do too. Rest and hope. Both really good things, actually. But also maybe consider keeping him away from Dan Kilpatrick, that guy seems like bad luck. (Sorry, Dan. But Spurs fans are a superstitious lot, you know how it is.)†

† – Dan Kilpatrick is not actually responsible for any of this. Probably.