One Tottenham Hotspur player had to operate in a different position during the post-season friendly with Newcastle United on Wednesday.
Tottenham ended the Premier League campaign with a 3-0 win over Sheffield United but Spurs jetted straight off to Australia after that victory.
Newcastle United were the opponents in Melbourne as Ange Postecoglou returned home for a bizarrely-timed friendly.
Players may have been looking to rest up after a testing period of Premier League action, especially as some players have Euro 2024 and Copa America commitments to come.
Tottenham headed to Australia undeterred and played out a 1-1 draw as James Maddison opened the scoring, only for Alexander Isak to level it up.
The game went to penalties and Tottenham were sadly beaten 5-4 with Bryan Gil’s spot kick saved by Mark Gillespie.
Postecoglou surely won’t take this defeat too seriously, but it was a chance to see a different Tottenham side.
Oliver Skipp on Tottenham Hotspur position
Youngsters such as Leo Black, Rio Kyerematen, Jamie Donley, Yago Santiago and Tyrese Hall were all in action as excitement builds over their futures at Tottenham.
Postecoglou also decided to utilise Oliver Skipp in a rather unfamiliar position to most Tottenham fans.
Skipp featured as a centre back and partnered youngster Ashley Phillips in the heart of the Tottenham backline.
Skipp is a midfielder by trade but was recently utilised as a left back by Postecoglou, so this was just another demonstration of his versatility.
Speaking to Spurs Play after Wednesday’s game, Skipp admitted that he is actually familiar with playing at centre back having occupied that role in the Tottenham academy at times.
Not many Spurs fans would have seen that before but Skipp just happy to take any opportunity which comes his way under Postecoglou with centre back certainly a new position for him in the first team.
“Yeah, you can only take the opportunities when you get them and that’s what I’ve been looking to do,” said Skipp. “In the academy I played a lot at centre-back so it was no problem,” he added.
READ MORE: A timeline of all Tottenham Hotspur captains in the Premier League era
Skipp showing versatility as he fights for Tottenham future
Skipp has been something of an outcast in terms of the Tottenham starting lineup.
The 23-year-old only managed five Premier League starts in Postecoglou’s debut season at Tottenham and managed 16 substitute appearances.
Look at the previous two seasons and you will see that Skipp became something of a forgotten man.
Skip cracked up 1304 minutes of Premier League action in the 2021-22 season and 1499 last season.
Under Postecoglou, Skipp played just 695 minutes of league football – not even half of last season’s total.
It’s clear that Skipp is going to have to do something special to get back to those kind of minutes in the Tottenham side.
Playing at left back and centre back really does show that Skipp will play anywhere to try and impress Postecoglou and we may yet see more of Skipp being moved around the pitch in pre-season as he looks to prove that he deserves to stay around in North London.
READ MORE: All seven Ange Postecoglou player exits as Tottenham manager and where they are now