Model student Skipp passes Tottenham test in Champions League

W hen Oliver Skipp was named in the Tottenham squad for the 2019 Champions League final, he had a problem. The 18-year-old hopeful was bang in the middle of his A-Level exams. He had papers in economics and history, one before the team flight to Madrid; another shortly after the showpiece against Liverpool.

And so Mauricio Pochettino and his players would be treated to the most unusual of sights. Skipp took his books on the trip and he even did a bit of revision on the bus to the match. For the record, Skipp would get an A in economics and a B in history.

Skipp did not make the match-day 23 that night but he drank in the experience, filing it away for when he would start a major Champions League tie for Spurs. He has had to wait longer than he would have liked for the opportunity, through four appearances as a substitute in the competition, but it finally happened for him on Tuesday night – thrust into the cauldron of a sold-out San Siro for the first leg of the last 16 tie against Milan.

That Skipp was partnered in midfield by Pape Matar Sarr – at 20, two years his junior and making his debut in the Champions League – ensured the most dramatic of subplots.

The pair had started together only once previously – against League One Portsmouth in the FA Cup on 7 January – and even that was not supposed to happen. Skipp was a late replacement for Yves Bissouma, who had felt an injury in the warm-up. Apart from a couple of minutes as substitutes in the game before that against Aston Villa, it was the only time that Skipp and Sarr had shared a field.

Antonio Conte admitted on Monday night that he had no other options against Milan, having lost Rodrigo Bentancur to an anterior cruciate ligament rupture in the 4-1 defeat at