Oliver Skipp has admitted his return to full fitness has taken longer than he would have liked. Coming in for plenty of praise from Antonio Conte during the first two months of the Tottenham head coach's tenure, injury restricted the midfielder to only 15 Spurs appearances across 2022.
Having missed the final four months of last season due to a pelvic injury that later required surgery, Skipp then sustained a freak impact injury in pre-season training that unfortunately left him on the sidelines once again. With chances just not coming his way with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur in fine form in the middle of the park, the academy graduate has had to bide his time and be very patient for an opportunity in Conte's team.
Initially named on the bench for Saturday's FA Cup win over Portsmouth before he was drafted into the team ten minutes before kick-off after Yves Bissouma picked up a knock in the warm-up, it was the player's second successive start after featuring from the off in the 4-0 win over Crystal Palace. After an extremely frustrating past year for the player, Skipp declared the break in play for the World Cup was "massive" for him and likened it to another pre-season.
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"I feel like it does take more time than I probably appreciated," the England Under-21s midfielder told N17 when asked about trying to rediscover his match sharpness. "When it first happened I thought I was just going to come back and be flying. It has taken longer than perhaps I would have liked, I will be honest about that.
"Definitely that World Cup period was massive for me as in pre-season I had the foot [injury] as well which was bad timing, so it was almost like a restart, another pre-season for me to get in the running and get that sharpness back. Nothing replaces being out on the pitch. You can train as much as you want but to get that match sharpness is always important. It was nice actually to get back-to-back games as I played Palace and this [Portsmouth]."
Skipp will be hoping that pitch time comes his way on Sunday when Tottenham host Arsenal in the north London derby, although he may have Bentancur to contend with once again as the Uruguayan ace looks to give Spurs a fitness boost ahead of the clash. Revealing that the team will have a couple of days off after the Portsmouth win, they will then have near enough a full week on the training pitch to get down to work with Conte and devise the best possible plan to trouble Arsenal.
"I think we've got a couple of days off so it will be nice to recover and to think other things," admitted Skipp. "Then we'll be looking at pretty much a full week to prepare for Arsenal. We'll be making sure we watch their games back, do all the analysis and making sure we're right for that game."
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