Quique Sanchez Flores says he decided not to start Troy Deeney against Tottenham Hotspur this afternoon because the Watford captain had not trained over the past two days.

The 27-year-old had begun all but one of the Hornets’ matches this season but was a surprise omission from the starting XI against Spurs.

Deeney was introduced from the bench alongside Valon Behrami at half time but the duo couldn’t help improve a poor Watford performance and the Golden Boys were beaten 1-0.

Given Deeney’s stature at Watford is was inevitable Flores would face questions as to why the striker was dropped to the bench.

The Spaniard explained: “We had three players who haven’t trained since Chelsea on Wednesday; Behrami, (Odion) Ighalo and Deeney.

"They needed time to recover. Maybe with two more days they would’ve all been ready. But we had to play today against Tottenham.

“We knew that in the opening minutes of matches Tottenham are physically strong.

"I didn’t want to waste the fitness of these players in the opening minutes when I knew we would have to defend.

“I wanted to manage the changes - like we did at half-time - but in the end it was not enough.

“I wanted to choose one player from Deeney, Behrami and Ighalo to start. In the end I chose Ighalo but I could tell he was tired.”

Tottenham deserved their victory and, in truth, the margin of victory should have been far greater.

Spurs steamrolled the Hornets with Flores’ side rarely getting out of their own half, particularly in the opening period.

“For us it was really difficult to stop the attacks of Tottenham,” Flores admitted.

“They had the ball from the beginning, played really well and used the space amazingly.

“When we tried to defend the middle of the pitch they went out wide. When we tried to block the sides they played in the middle.”

Flores hand was forced in the second half by the injury suffered by Miguel Britos. It meant he had used his third and final change by the 54th minute.

“That isn’t not normal,” Flores said. “It meant we didn’t have the chance to change in the last minutes. What can we do?’ After one hour the three changes were done.”

He added: “The idea was to defend well, reduce the space and to try to provoke mistakes in Tottenham’s half.

“But when we recovered the ball it was impossible to advance. They pressed high, were very clever and stopped our attempts to attack.

“We had very good players on the pitch, the best technical players – Almen Abdi, Jose Jurado, (Etienne) Capoue, Ben Watson and (Mario) Suarez. They played quickly but it was impossible to separate Tottenham’s defensive shape when we attacked.”