Injured spell 'felt like longest weeks of my life' - Skippy

Of all Oliver Skipp’s new experiences on and off the pitch over the last year, he hated every second of one - not being able to play.

‘Skippy’ relished his loan move to Norwich City last season, played 45 of the Canaries’ 46 matches on the way to the Championship title, all while gaining the life experience of living on his own during the COVID-19 pandemic. His performances in City’s midfield earned a place in the PFA’s Team of the Season.

But there’s a reason why he played in 45 of 46 league games, not the full 46 - he fractured his metatarsal against Reading in that 45th game on 1 May, and subsequently spent the next 11 weeks going through rehab, getting himself ready for the start of pre-season back here at Spurs.

Having worked through the summer, he returned to action and a 45-minute stint in our pre-season friendly win at Colchester on 21 July, and followed up with 77 minutes of action in our 3-1 win at MK Dons on Wednesday evening.

Skippy’s back - and you can’t wipe the smile of his face! “I loved every minute of it at Colchester, just to get back out there and get that feeling of playing back into my legs, nothing beats playing football,” said the Academy graduate, still only 20.

“It’s nice after I’d put the hard work in over the summer to get back and play football again. I’m really excited. I was only out for 10, 11 weeks, but it felt like they were the longest weeks of my life! I didn’t even miss that much football, so I can only imagine how it would feel during the season!”

It’s so far, so good in terms of the friendlies. “I feel good, no issues, all back to normal,” he added. “Now I’ll keep pushing on. I just want to keep pushing, keep training hard... in pre-season that’s almost as important as the games, to get the minutes into the legs and in the games, to implement what we’ve been doing in training. I’ll keep pushing and see where it takes me. That’s what pre-season is all about.”