Report: Oliver Skipp healthy and ready for preseason

It’s a quiet Tuesday afternoon, at least as far as transfer rumors go, but I do have some excellent news! According to Alasdair Gold at Football.London, Oliver Skipp has fully recovered from his long term injury and is anticipating hitting the ground running in Tottenham Hotspur’s preseason preparations.

That’s obviously fantastic news. Skippy’s pelvic injury was one of the few downsides to the second half of Tottenham’s season — he had really started to hit his stride under Antonio Conte before he was sidelined with a groin infection from a routine injection. He ended up having surgery to correct the issue and missed the entire rest of the season. Gold noted that by the last few weeks of the Premier League campaign, Skippy was running outside and doing on-pitch ball work, which is fantastic news considering the length of his recovery.

Spurs manager Antonio Conte loves Skippy and sees him as an important part of Tottenham’s midfield. We don’t know whether being so long away from first team football will set Skipp back a half step or so, but we have plenty of evidence that he can fit well into the central midfield structure that Conte wants, and it’s very likely he’s going to be a very important part of Tottenham’s tactics next season.

A full preseason under Conte is going to be grueling, but it’s also the best opportunity Oliver is going to have to get back up to full match fitness. I’d guess that we’ll see a lot of him in the preseason matches as he regains his form.