Luka Modric

London24 Spurs blogger Daniel Grigg watched an unconvincing display from Spurs stars in narrow FA Cup win

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Tottenham Hotspur did just about enough to get the better of Championship club Watford and set up a fifth round FA Cup clash away at regular pre-season opponents Stevenage Borough.

After a less than ideal build-up to the game, with Harry Redknapp’s first week in court and the unusual Friday evening kick-off time, it was never likely to be the most flowing, organised and devastating display from Spurs.

Regular starters and important cogs in the machine like Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Gareth Bale, Brad Friedel and Aaron Lennon were all left out of the starting line-up, though by no means was it a second-string side.

Six of the names who started against Manchester City were on show again from the start against Watford, alongside returning players like Michael Dawson and Emmanuel Adebayor.

Throw in Watford’s home advantage, and perhaps the one-goal winning margin wasn’t too surprising. More concerning was Spurs’ inability to turn superior possession into even a half-decent number of worthwhile chances throughout the match.

A part to play in that was Luka Modric, who put in one of his least effective performances of the season, coming immediately after another pretty uninspiring display against City.

The usually influential Croatian was replaced at half time by Aaron Lennon – Spurs recognising their need for greater width and better links and routes between the deeper-lying midfielders and the strikers, who’d been left unfed and isolated. In fairness to Modric, neither Jermain Defoe nor Emmanuel Adebayor looked particularly sharp anyway.

It all served as a massive reminder to Tottenham how much they still rely on just the one or two main stars to keep things working upfront.

Namely: Gareth Bale and Rafael Van der Vaart, consistently creating and scoring in tight areas in the final third of the pitch. That is vital if Spurs are to carry on chalking up the wins each week against highly-drilled league defences, especially now they’ve become one of the big scalps and a side teams are likely to sit back against.

Van der Vaart was the difference between the sides on Friday, the Dutchman’s dipping 25-yard shot getting the better of England prospect Scott Loach in the home team’s net for his ninth goal of a relatively quiet season for him.

As well as creating few genuine chances, Spurs struggled to stop Sean Dyche’s youthful Watford side, who played very well, getting in plenty of their own efforts on third choice goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini’s goal.

Scott Parker was not quite his usual self in front of the back four, three-quarters of which looked very solid. Jake Livermore out-played him in the first half, though the pairing should have looked more comfortable facing Championship opposition.

While no-one would now have many issues bringing Livermore in for Parker if injuries dictated it, the prospect of replacing Assou-Ekotto with Danny Rose at left back looks an ever more worrying one.

In recent years Spurs have got away with playing Rose a couple of times in big games, but ‘got away with’ are the right words.

Rose looked shaky and somewhat uncomfortable in his withdrawn position against Watford, despite his natural left foot helping on that wing.

Along the rest of the back four though, who were called into more action than perhaps they were expecting, it was a much better story.

Kyle Walker’s pace impacted excellently at both ends of the pitch, as he proved himself again a much more reliable defender than he’s sometimes given credit for.

Younes Kaboul tried hard to support Rose early on, before the former Leeds youngster started settling down a bit, as the game progressed.

Michael Dawson, a long way off his controlled displays of a couple of seasons ago, was stretched by Marvin Sordell’s pace, but scrambled well for the team.

Cudicini might not have too many more games left in his professional career, but he was deserving of the clean sheet, after still throwing himself around at 38 years old to make a number of vital saves.

Still ultra-dependable, for whenever both Heurelho Gomes and the only man in the squad older than him, Brad Friedel, are unavailable or rested.