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Oliver Skipp

Looks like he was played further forward today than his previous appeances. Always eager to get the ball and tried a few more ambitious passes, which didn’t always come off. And still 18 despite the fact that he looks 40 (I think by the time he’s 23 he’ll look like Steptoe.

wxAtF1
 
Watched most of the Tranmere game; he played well though of course you have to take the quality of the opposition into account; he did worry me in that he was caught sleeping on the ball and was dispossessed in a potentially dangerous central area a couple of times, so i suspect Poch won't risk starting him against, say, a Leicester..

Never ever second guess the Poch man! ;-)
 
Thought he was poor today, looked out of his depth.

Seemed to lose the ball a lot and be out of position

Also oddly looked off balance a lot?
Agree his was pretty poor overall but I think looking out of his depth is harsh. I don’t think he was out of position, he simply wasn’t playing in a conventional CM role. I’m sure he would have learnt a lot in what was only his second start(not sure whether that was just PL or overall) and get better with more experience....
 
Agree his was pretty poor overall but I think looking out of his depth is harsh. I don’t think he was out of position, he simply wasn’t playing in a conventional CM role. I’m sure he would have learnt a lot in what was only his second start(not sure whether that was just PL or overall) and get better with more experience....

I’m not writing him off, but it looked like some of the players took it on themselves rather than give him the ball at times.

Players like Skipp would benefit from a whole season of mens football and it’s quite frustrating we don’t loan them out.
 
Agree his was pretty poor overall but I think looking out of his depth is harsh. I don’t think he was out of position, he simply wasn’t playing in a conventional CM role. I’m sure he would have learnt a lot in what was only his second start(not sure whether that was just PL or overall) and get better with more experience....

I think thats right - his role was probably a bit different to what he's been used to in youth football. I'm not really sure what type of midfielder he's meant to be, though someone in the match thread compared him to James Milner which i think its a good shout. Going to be interesting to see what he develops in to - I could see him being a wide midfielder in a 4-3-3 though struggle with him in a two-man CM partnership. Good to have another player out of the academy though - we just need to view him as an extra/fall-back CM in the squad for the next year or two though and go out and bring in a proper Dembele replacement in the summer
 
Looks like he was played further forward today than his previous appeances. Always eager to get the ball and tried a few more ambitious passes, which didn’t always come off. And still 18 despite the fact that he looks 40 (I think by the time he’s 23 he’ll look like Steptoe.

wxAtF1

That and his forward pressing is what encouraged me the most. For an 18-year-old still gingerly finding his feet in the professional game, never mind at a club like ours, it would have been easy to stick to safe sideways passing - keep the ball, recycle it, let someone else (probably Winksy) handle the progressive passing. Hell, Winks did the same himself when he burst onto the scene - there was a lot of sideways and backward passing, which has only recently subsided in favor of more aggression and penetration.

That Skipp had the courage to look up and try some longer, more penetrative passes in only his second league start for us says quite a bit about a) his bravery, and b) the enabling environment Poch has built. When you're new to any job, you're more inclined to try bold things if you know that you won't be held accountable in a negative way if they don't come off. And it's very likely that Poch does that with players like Skippy - he demands a lot of loyalty and commitment from players, of course, but I have zero doubt that he also builds them up by letting them try things without fear.

Same goes with Skipp's forward pressing, including the pressing that led to the second goal. It's risky, but it's also brave - and in Skippy's case, even in the cases where his passing broke down, he was usually first over to press the man in possession.

Good things all round.
 
That and his forward pressing is what encouraged me the most. For an 18-year-old still gingerly finding his feet in the professional game, never mind at a club like ours, it would have been easy to stick to safe sideways passing - keep the ball, recycle it, let someone else (probably Winksy) handle the progressive passing. Hell, Winks did the same himself when he burst onto the scene - there was a lot of sideways and backward passing, which has only recently subsided in favor of more aggression and penetration.

That Skipp had the courage to look up and try some longer, more penetrative passes in only his second league start for us says quite a bit about a) his bravery, and b) the enabling environment Poch has built. When you're new to any job, you're more inclined to try bold things if you know that you won't be held accountable in a negative way if they don't come off. And it's very likely that Poch does that with players like Skippy - he demands a lot of loyalty and commitment from players, of course, but I have zero doubt that he also builds them up by letting them try things without fear.

Same goes with Skipp's forward pressing, including the pressing that led to the second goal. It's risky, but it's also brave - and in Skippy's case, even in the cases where his passing broke down, he was usually first over to press the man in possession.

Good things all round.
On the face of it, seemed odd Poch going out of his way after the match to bang on about how he made a mistake in taking Skippy off, because he was fading badly.

But what you say makes perfect sense. A clear case of damage limitation, stroking the boys ego.
 
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Something people miss is that he has basically missed out the under 23 squad and gone straight from the u18s into the first team squad.

That is incredible when you think of the u23s who were ahead of him 6 months ago; Edwards, Oakley-Booth, Whiteman, Amos, Sterling, Marsh...

He’s still listed as being in the u18s 2nd year academy players (along with Poch and Tainios sons!)

For further context, we all still consider Harry Winks to be a promising/developing player. Skipp is 4.5 years younger than Winks!
 
Once again Ive seen him play, and once again Im just not sure what he is supposed to be.

Still yet to be defined I guess! My over riding thought is "tidy".

I dont think he was especially good yesterday. For the most part I thought he wasnt notable, which itself isnt a bad thing.

While he didnt set the world alight he made no mistakes and didnt stand out as if he didnt belong.

Which, for an 18 year old in his second start (I think!?) is really quite impressive and promising.

He deserves credit - this was a high pressure game, we needed the 3 points, against a tricky team, and Poch opted to use the squad and play the kid. It could have gone badly wrong, but instead his performance went a long way to us getting the result.
 
Once again Ive seen him play, and once again Im just not sure what he is supposed to be.

Apologies that I can't reference the original post, but I think whoever made the Scott Parker comparison is on the money.

He's not a metronome like Modric or Winks, not a big physical destroyer like Dier or Wanyama, and not a line breaker like Dembele or Sissoko. Rather he's a tactically clever defensive player, who moves the ball effectively. So a DM rather than a CM, but a different type to our two existing ones.
 
Apologies that I can't reference the original post, but I think whoever made the Scott Parker comparison is on the money.

He's not a metronome like Modric or Winks, not a big physical destroyer like Dier or Wanyama, and not a line breaker like Dembele or Sissoko. Rather he's a tactically clever defensive player, who moves the ball effectively. So a DM rather than a CM, but a different type to our two existing ones.

Maybe?

Id say thats a hell of a lot more detail than we have seen enough to confirm, to be honest.

Im very much in the wait and see camp, far to soon to define what he is about.
 
Once again Ive seen him play, and once again Im just not sure what he is supposed to be.

Still yet to be defined I guess! My over riding thought is "tidy".

I dont think he was especially good yesterday. For the most part I thought he wasnt notable, which itself isnt a bad thing.

While he didnt set the world alight he made no mistakes and didnt stand out as if he didnt belong.

Which, for an 18 year old in his second start (I think!?) is really quite impressive and promising.

He deserves credit - this was a high pressure game, we needed the 3 points, against a tricky team, and Poch opted to use the squad and play the kid. It could have gone badly wrong, but instead his performance went a long way to us getting the result.
He looks ok so far, apparently Poch really likes him so I'd assume theres a lot more to come from him. He also helped set up Eriksens' goal by closing down and blocking the clearance (never a handball like some were trying to make out)....
 
He looks ok so far, apparently Poch really likes him so I'd assume theres a lot more to come from him. He also helped set up Eriksens' goal by closing down and blocking the clearance (never a handball like some were trying to make out)....

Absolutely. Im certainly not trying to be down on him. Im just saying he seems somewhat undefined to me.

A lot of players come in and you can immediately see what their best attributes are. Clearly offensive/defensive/physical/techinical etc. Skipp? Very much a blank slate for me at this point.

That being said he doesnt look out of place, which is a huge positive IMO.
 
Absolutely. Im certainly not trying to be down on him. Im just saying he seems somewhat undefined to me.

A lot of players come in and you can immediately see what their best attributes are. Clearly offensive/defensive/physical/techinical etc. Skipp? Very much a blank slate for me at this point.

That being said he doesnt look out of place, which is a huge positive IMO.

And the great thing about this is that its Poch that will be doing the moulding
 
It will be interesting to see how many different positions he get played in.

If my memory serves, in his first start he played in a central role, yesterday he seemed to be more on the left, almost mirroring Sissoko's position on the right (didn't he fill in as LB when Rose was getting treatment?) with more license to attack doe that side, which explains why he was so far up field to intercept the clearance for Eriksens goal.
 
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