Top police officers in Hertfordshire have said they do not have any serious concerns about the upcoming FA Cup tie between Watford FC and Tottenham Hotspur next Friday.

The fixture was announced last week and is predicted to be a sell-out with 4,000 Spurs fans set to descend on the town on one of the busiest nights of the week.

The last time Watford hosted a home fixture on a Friday was against Sheffield Wednesday in October 2009.

Although senior officers at Hertfordshire Constabulary said they voiced slight concerns to the FA about the date of the fixture they said it did not pose any serious policing challenges.

Chief Inspector Richard Harbon, who will be second in command of the operation on Friday, said there are advantages to the date.

One was that clubs and pubs would have full door staff on and there would already be a strong police presence in the town centre.

He said that due to the nature of the match the police did not anticipate a high number of problem fans turning up.

“The Spurs ticket allocation has been sold to season ticket holders and club members,” said Chief Inspector Harbon.

“So if someone is arrested for a football-related crime then they will have their season ticket taken away.

“Also we do not have any intel indicating that there will be any pre-planned or spontaneous disorder.”

Police assess matches for potential trouble with a matrix based on intelligence that predicts how many problem fans area likely to be at a match.

The fixtures which would have the highest risk factor are one were there has been a history of trouble such as with Luton or QPR.

Chief Inspector Harbon has 25 years of public order policing experience and has worked on operations such as an EDL demonstration in Luton as well as Euro cup matches.

He said as well as a strong police presence the force had developed other tactics to keeping things calm at matches such as engaging in friendly way with fans.

He added: “We have found over the years that by developing different tactics we can generally police these games without very much trouble.”