From classroom to first team for Skipp!

At 3pm on Tuesday afternoon, Oliver Skipp was in a classroom at Hotspur Way studying A-Level history.

At 8.30am on Thursday morning, he was back in that classroom learning A-Level economics.

In between those times, circa 9.20pm on Wednesday, the 18-year-old made his first team debut for Spurs in front of over 50,000 fans in the cauldron of a London derby at West Ham’s London Stadium.

After impressing on our summer tour of the USA, the central midfield starlet came on for Christian Eriksen at a crucial stage of our Carabao Cup fourth round showdown as the team saw out a 3-1 victory, booking a mouth-watering quarter-final clash with Arsenal in December.

Having trained regularly with our senior stars this season and earned a place on the bench for last month’s matches against Barcelona in the Champions League and Cardiff City in the Premier League, it was the first step on the ladder for our bright young battler from Welwyn Garden City – and he couldn’t hide his smile after the game.

“First of all, it was a great performance from the boys and I’m just delighted to make my debut in the Carabao Cup,” he beamed.

“It’s been brilliant, training with the team, then the build-up and just preparing for the game.

“When I got the call to come on, I was just trying to prepare myself. Obviously I was a bit nervous, but my thoughts were just to try to come on and make an impact and hopefully help the team to a victory.”

Named Premier League 2 Player of the Month for September after controlling the midfield in a number of Under-23 games this season, ‘Skippy’ was thankful to Mauricio Pochettino for giving him his opportunity.

“It shows that he’s willing to trust youth players and put them into a difficult environment which I can only thank him for,” he said.

“Hopefully I can use this opportunity to kick on and hopefully get a few more tastes of this in the future. It’s a great achievement and now I’ll continue to work hard and see where that takes me in the future.”