Happy New Year Tottenham !

Happiness is an action and not a hope and Watford today were absolutely hopeless, so no wonder by half-time the home fans looked glum, disillusioned and wondering why they paid the ticket price for entry.  For Tottenham fans it was another Christmas gift and what should constitute a really happy start to the new year.  Watford fans were so out of it, that they began cheering at a good save by Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.

The only debatable point in this debable for Watford Football Club was manager Mauricio Pochettino's decision to continue with Harry Kane, with one eye looking forward to Wednesday night when a major crunch game with Chelsea looms at White Hart Lane.  Not only was it better to save Harry Kane from any unnecessary injury with the game well won, but it was an opportunity to give misfiring new striker Vincent Janssen, an opportunity to break his duck.

In the end while Dele Alli was withdrawn at the right time, Jannsen came on with only 15 minutes left, which is very little time for a forward desperate to get his first goal, and also playing like a forward desperate to get their first goal.  For Tottenham the only question isn't how much they ended up scoring but how much more it would have been if not for chances spurned and wasted, never mind the unlucky strikes such as Dele Alli nearly scoring a screamer, that bounced off the underside of the bar. 

That Watford were gifted a goal in injury time was only a measure of how much Tottenham players lost interest in the game as a competitive competition, and the Watford consolation was a messy one that spoke of indifference, yet teams like Chelsea don't exhibit this kind of indifference - teams like Chelsea are touted as this years possible champions because they don't move from ease to indifference, but simply change style from easy to ruthlessly shutting up shop - which is a skill that all past league champions have shown.

Last year a win at Watford put Tottenham into the top 3.  Well at least with Arsenal still to play a win against Watford saw history repeat itself as Spurs jumped back into 3rd place, the position they finished last year.  For the most part Tottenham did look like a Top 4 team and this is not the same feeling as Tottenham teams of old.  One has to go back a long way to cite Tottenham as a true league title championship force - which is more than 50 years ago under the management of the great Bill Nicholson.

Pochettino is a good young manager, but not anywhere near the legend status of Nicholson, for the simple reason that this young and talented manager has not won a single piece of silverware.  That is why Tottenham fans remember Keith Burkinshaw, he was the most unlikely manager, a puzzling choice when he was appointed but an inspired selection by the time this ordinary looking manager brought extraordinary cup success, as well as having the imagination to sign the first two foreign players to play British football.   Winning then becomes a beautiful thing, whereas winning without silverware is merely a happy new year without a resolution.

"