Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Oliver Skipp is on loan at Norwich for the season in the Championship, if you want an example of a loan that is working this is it.
Oliver Skipp spent the last two seasons as a developing 18-19-year-old footballer on the fringes of the Tottenham Hotspur team. However, while getting to train with senior team is one thing, playing with them is another. Following a couple seasons of not playing, Oliver Skill is seeing plenty of opportunity on his loan at Norwich city.
Skipping Down the Road
Oliver Skipp made his Tottenham Hotspur debut in December 2018, making a brief 3-minute cameo against Southampton. From there Skipp continued to be in the squad playing 111 minutes across four different games during the 2018-19 holiday period. His longest appearance during that stretch was 75 minutes at Burnley. Things were looking up.
However, as players that were injured returned to health and the squad looked to push on, Skipp stayed on the fringes playing only 71 minutes in the entire Premier League season in 2019-20. That inability to get any real playing time was hampering Skipp’s development and then you add in the new signings in his part of the field and suddenly the chances of playing were reduced even further.
After two seasons of fewer opportunities than his development needed two things happened this past summer for Oliver Skipp. First Skipp signed a new deal with the club keeping him a Spurs until 2024 and then he was sent out on loan. When the decision was made to send Oliver Skipp on loan this summer it made perfect sense if he was going to get to play senior level football, which he certainly has to this point.
Opportunity for Oliver
After debuting in 2018, Skipp has made a total of 23 appearances for Tottenham, playing 700 minutes for the club in all competitions. In 11 games since joining Norwich Oliver Skipp has already amassed 927 minutes, third on the club behind only Max Aarons and Tim Krul. 927 minutes is over 200 more minutes than Skipp had accumulated over two seasons on the fringes of Spurs squad. At an average of over 84 minutes per contest, Skipp is getting his opportunity and is making the most of it.
Oliver Skipp has certainly fit in well at Norwich starting all 11 of the teams Championship matches and going the full 90 in seven of those 11. These are not meaningless minutes either as Norwich is 3rd in the table on 21 points from 11 game, including being unbeaten in six straight. And while Norwich has been playing well Skipp has not been any passenger just riding along, he is helping conduct the train.
Beyond the minutes, according to Whoscored.com Skipp is 5th on the team in passes attempted per game at 58 and 4th on the team in completion percentage of 87.9%. Additionally, while Skipp has yet to record an assist he has been completing .9 key passes per match, which is 8th best on the team. All this from a defensive central midfield position, with the key being defense.
Oliver Skip is first on the Norwich team with some 2.3 tackles per match, which included a season high six tackles against Millwall and 5 against Bournemouth. Additionally, Skipp is third in the team in both interceptions at 1.2 per match and block at .6 per match. All of this add up to the 8th overall rated player for Norwich on the season a 6.86 rating overall.
https://twitter.com/NorwichCityFC/status/1324661087258746885?s=20
All of this has led to yet another call-up to the U-21 England National team with Norwich teammate Max Aarons. Ultimately, the ratings and statistics are not nearly as important as the minutes and playing time, which Skipp has been getting in abundance. At this point in the season, it is safe to say that Oliver Skipp is a loan that is working.