Postecoglou reveals whether Oliver Skipp is an option at left-back for Spurs
Tottenham Hotspur take on Burnley this weekend as the Premier League campaign nears its conclusion, and Ange Postecoglou has discussed the recent emergence of Oliver Skipp as a player who can fill the left-back role.
With injuries to Destiny Udogie, Ben Davies, and Ryan Sessegnon, and with Sergio Reguilon being out on loan, Tottenham have turned to Emerson Royal of late to play on the left of the defence.
However, as a natural right-back, Royal is not especially suited to the role. It was interesting then, that after a poor showing against Liverpool, Ange Postecoglou decided to replace Royal with Oliver Skipp.
The young midfielder did well in the makeshift role, and many have called for him to start there this weekend against Burnley.
Why is Oliver Skipp playing at left-back?
In his press conference today, Postecoglou was asked how that all came about, and explained that Skipp had been training in the role recently.
He told Football.London: “We have been working with Skippy the last few weeks. When we lost Destiny and Ben, we were left with Emerson who is not really a left-back. So, we were looking around at options and in training we have been using him in that space. I thought he did well when he came on.
“The way we play with full-backs, certainly with some of the positioning, he wouldn’t be too unfamiliar with the positions he would need to take up. He is an option for us and I think we need another option because we have three games this week and we only have Emerson as a back-up full-back at the club.”
And, when asked whether Skipp still has a future at Spurs, Postecoglou replied: “Yeah, I don’t see any reason why not. He probably feels like he could have played more this year.
“With the way the season has gone for us in terms of our games programme, he has probably been one of the ones who has suffered because we haven’t been able to get the game time rotations we need through the year. But yeah, I see Skippy as part of our future.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I definitely think Skipp should start at left-back this weekend. There’s nothing to lose really — he can’t be worse than Emerson Royal, after all. As for his future, I think Skipp has to stay really based on his homegrown, club-trained status, but we have to give him more game time next season, too.
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