Oliver Skipp Confirmed

[Bordersfox]

1 minute ago, OntarioFox said:

Honestly I'll be delighted to be proven wrong, because he'll feel like a new signing if he does come good. But I really, really worry for us this coming season if teams come at us early-doors and realise they can exploit the fact that he doesn't seem up to pace.

 

My biggest fear is that we end up having to rely on our front line to out score opponents, which is arguably an even bigger and more pressing concern right now. Skipp isn't the only one in fairness, it's been pointed out ad nauseum that our midfield collectively is a chocolate fireguard. Perhaps more athletic centre backs like Nelson and Okoli may spare the blushes of Skipp, Wilf, Winks if they play like they have been doing, but as it stands it looks like the two cargo ships and a clown will still be getting regular gametime for us... so I can't see our defensive woes improving much beyond hopefully coming up against some garbage finishers in this league. 

If we are playing Coady and Vestergaard with what we think Cifuentes system is going to be then I will give up.  Either he's not the manager I am hoping for or Okoli really is incredibly bad.

 

Surely he prioritises athleticism in one CB over passing ability.  We saw Okoli press very high in one of the friendlies.  Something Faes used to do in the Championship in fairness. 

 

I just think it is too early to judge what team he's going to play.  I said in another thread I think we could do with another 8, a LB and a forward.  Assuming we use Okoli/Faes/Nelson as CBs. However, shipping out Ndidi/Soumare, Coady, VK etc. will not be easy.  

 

Also let's just keep in mind that the Championship is pretty shit.  I was surprised just how bad it was last time.  I really think we'll be fine depending on points deductions.  None of this excuses the shit show that got us here. 

[Slab Edd]

I thought he was pretty decent yesterday, a slide tackle in a friendly just shows how eager and willing he is,most would have just let that go,broke koln lines with some front passes that I have honest to god never seen Winks do for us too 

 

[Pliskin]

34 minutes ago, Slab Edd said:

I thought he was pretty decent yesterday, a slide tackle in a friendly just shows how eager and willing he is,most would have just let that go,broke koln lines with some front passes that I have honest to god never seen Winks do for us too 

 

He’s behind Hamza for me. He’s looked very sharp so far. The CM is a real conundrum. 

[Claridge]

1 hour ago, Slab Edd said:

I thought he was pretty decent yesterday, a slide tackle in a friendly just shows how eager and willing he is,most would have just let that go,broke koln lines with some front passes that I have honest to god never seen Winks do for us too 

 

much prefer skipp to winks, 

[LCFCCKEANO]

Think he came into a squad that just lost its star player, in his area of the pitch, and along with that lost a lot of its identity and promotion manager, late in the window, barely got a kick until we were practically all but gone, had to play through two managers the first of which was not particularly welcomed. Not defending the fact he played poorly last year but it’s hardly a space for anyone to flourish, think we can all see Mavididi as an example is way better than last years production. Give him another year at a lower level. He’s only 24 too.

[Slab Edd]

5 minutes ago, Claridge said:

much prefer skipp to winks, 

We're going to be playing alot more forward a lot more quickly, and that in general does not suit winks.

[Claridge]

11 hours ago, Slab Edd said:

We're going to be playing alot more forward a lot more quickly, and that in general does not suit winks.

nope, don't think i have ever seen a player pass it backwards so often 

[Lambert09]

Thought he looked far more comfortable today. He’s quietly had a decent pre-season imo. 

[ronnup]

Soumare staying and starting? Thats my worry

[funkyrobot]

1 hour ago, Lambert09 said:

Thought he looked far more comfortable today. He’s quietly had a decent pre-season imo. 

I thought his performance was uninspiring. Winks in the second half was far more creative, actually looked for the ball and was positive in possession.

[Ric Flair]

21 minutes ago, funkyrobot said:

I thought his performance was uninspiring. Winks in the second half was far more creative, actually looked for the ball and was positive in possession.

How i saw it as well. Also thought Skipp was horrid vs Koln. Yet to see him have a good game for us. 

[dmayne7]

 

2 hours ago, Lambert09 said:

Thought he looked far more comfortable today. He’s quietly had a decent pre-season imo. 

First 30 mins in particular he was fantastic. Looked like a different player in terms of pace and energy. Actually somehow made Soumare take a bit more defensive responsibility

[BeaumontFox]

2 hours ago, ronnup said:

Soumare staying and starting? Thats my worry

He was better than Skipp today

[Quorndon_Fox]

Did naff all today. If we’d have paid £2m for him I reckon get less of a rough ride. 

[funkyrobot]

11 hours ago, dmayne7 said:

 

First 30 mins in particular he was fantastic. Looked like a different player in terms of pace and energy. Actually somehow made Soumare take a bit more defensive responsibility

Fantastic is quite a stretch. He was ok, but looked less capable than Winks did when he came on. In the first half, all of our creative play came from the wings. Our midfield held a shape but were pretty anonymous and both Skipp and Bouba wall passed it most of the time.

[Lesterlad]

On 19/08/2024 at 15:55, Big Dave said:

Really feels like a promotion push next season signing.

Can you pick my lottery numbers

[lcfc sheff]

On 03/08/2025 at 23:04, Quorndon_Fox said:

Did naff all today. If we’d have paid £2m for him I reckon get less of a rough ride. 

Yes, mainly because that would mean he is actually sellable! 

[Jakemoore]

It’s not Skipp’s fault that Rudkin agreed to pay such an obscene amount of money for him. I feel like he’s become a bit of a scapegoat for fans looking to vent at the board. 
 

Skipp will probably do well at this level and in the right team he could do a job in the PL but he’s not a £25m player. But he also didn’t sell himself so we shouldn’t give him such a hard time for the fee.

Edited 5 August 2025 by Jakemoore

[TJB-fox]

14 minutes ago, Jakemoore said:

It’s not Skipp’s fault that Rudkin agreed to pay such an obscene amount of money for him. I feel like he’s become a bit of a scapegoat for fans looking to vent at the board. 
 

Skipp will probably do well at this level and in the right team he could do a job in the PL but he’s not a £25m player. But he also didn’t sell himself so we shouldn’t give him such a hard time for the fee.

He’s been terrible on the pitch regardless of the fee paid. If he left tomorrow nobody would notice

[AKCJ]

Has there ever been a more pointless footballer? What does he do?

[Finnegan]

On 03/08/2025 at 20:53, Ric Flair said:

How i saw it as well. Also thought Skipp was horrid vs Koln. Yet to see him have a good game for us. 

 

I want to see them in different roles though tbf.

 

My only real disappointment so far in Cifuentes is Soumare starting at the base of the midfield. 

 

I feel a bit for Winks, I understand him being disillusioned last year and not wanting to buy in to Ruud and Cooper, I understand him telling Ruud where to stick it over his off-field requests when he had no intention of playing him anyway.

 

Winks has spent most of his career with managers not giving him the chance to play in his best position becuase he's not 6' 2" and a unit.

 

Would like to see Cifuentes have the courage to not only play Winks but play Winks as the pivot and build the defence around that consideration. You don't NEED a big lad sat in front of the back four.

 

Our best midfield, on paper, for me at the moment is Winks sitting, Skipp B2B and Bilal attacking. That's defensive enough for a league in which we'll dominate posession in the vast majority of games.

 

[CornwallFox]

Really need to have winks in the first team. Whatever happened last season, he's a cut above the championship and he needs to play. Skipp do okay alongside him but he feels like a bench player really.

[AKCJ]

2 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I want to see them in different roles though tbf.

 

My only real disappointment so far in Cifuentes is Soumare starting at the base of the midfield. 

 

I feel a bit for Winks, I understand him being disillusioned last year and not wanting to buy in to Ruud and Cooper, I understand him telling Ruud where to stick it over his off-field requests when he had no intention of playing him anyway.

 

Winks has spent most of his career with managers not giving him the chance to play in his best position becuase he's not 6' 2" and a unit.

 

Would like to see Cifuentes have the courage to not only play Winks but play Winks as the pivot and build the defence around that consideration. You don't NEED a big lad sat in front of the back four.

 

Our best midfield, on paper, for me at the moment is Winks sitting, Skipp B2B and Bilal attacking. That's defensive enough for a league in which we'll dominate posession in the vast majority of games.

 

It's all on Winks IMO. I've seen enough from the opening few weeks to trust Cifuentes' judgement of a character. 

 

If he doesn't think Winks is all in then I don't think he should be playing.

 

What I would say is that it's been clear throughout his time at Leicester that Soumare is a bit of a world beater in training. Maybe Cifuentes just needs a few games to realise that he's bone idle. Can't imagine he'll have too many starts left in him when Barry Bannan sprints past him next week.

Edited 5 August 2025 by AKCJ

[Finnegan]

Just now, AKCJ said:

If he doesn't think Winks is all in then I don't think he should be playing.

 

But we don't know if that's the reason do we? Fans have been jumping to the conclusion that Winks has a bad attitude for about a year now and I don't know that there's a lot of evidence for this other than the internet collectively looking to turn everything in to a soap opera.

 

All we have is Ruud implying he wouldn't move closer to the training ground or agree to stay there. But, again, forget your fandom and your own personal love for the club for a second. You're commuting to your work place from your home, getting there on time for 9am every day, leaving after 5 every day, doing everything reasonably expected of you. Then along comes a new boss who thinks his staff should live closer to the office so that they can pull overtime and extra shifts for no more money. Despite that, he's actually freezing you out at work, isn't giving you anything to do, you're being held back from actually achieving your career goals and - worse still - he's favouring some absolute incompetent who is objectively worse than you AND who genuinely did refuse to stay and fight last year when the company was actually in trouble? Oh and if you don't comply he's going to go public and tell everyone you aren't committed enough to do it and you should because you're well paid. Would you agree and how would you feel about it?

 

Honestly, Winks was one of our best players at this level last time out, he got absolutely shit on more than most last season by two ****ing dreadful coaches and we've all collectively agreed to scapegoat him and make him a villain and I personally think I missed that memo. I don't get it?

 

[AKCJ]

11 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

But we don't know if that's the reason do we? Fans have been jumping to the conclusion that Winks has a bad attitude for about a year now and I don't know that there's a lot of evidence for this other than the internet collectively looking to turn everything in to a soap opera.

 

All we have is Ruud implying he wouldn't move closer to the training ground or agree to stay there. But, again, forget your fandom and your own personal love for the club for a second. You're commuting to your work place from your home, getting there on time for 9am every day, leaving after 5 every day, doing everything reasonably expected of you. Then along comes a new boss who thinks his staff should live closer to the office so that they can pull overtime and extra shifts for no more money. Despite that, he's actually freezing you out at work, isn't giving you anything to do, you're being held back from actually achieving your career goals and - worse still - he's favouring some absolute incompetent who is objectively worse than you AND who genuinely did refuse to stay and fight last year when the company was actually in trouble? Oh and if you don't comply he's going to go public and tell everyone you aren't committed enough to do it and you should because you're well paid. Would you agree and how would you feel about it?

 

Honestly, Winks was one of our best players at this level last time out, he got absolutely shit on more than most last season by two ****ing dreadful coaches and we've all collectively agreed to scapegoat him and make him a villain and I personally think I missed that memo. I don't get it?

 

You're right and we don't know. But we can probably take a good guess considering he was 1st on the team sheet up until he refused to fall in line with the rest of the squad.

 

But Soumare probably deserves a go at this level too.