Since he grew stronger there’s no stopping him

I’ve seen Harry mature over the last few years, more than anything in terms of his stature and physical build.

If I had one criticism of him before, it was that he was a bit lightweight and didn’t hold the ball up as he does now.

I was the same when I first came to Tottenham from Southampton in 1968, but as you train harder and do the right things you start to fill out and become stronger across the shoulders.

As a striker, it means you can hold your ground and instead of getting knocked off the ball you find the defenders will start to bounce off you.

Confidence helps, of course — it’s all about confidence, when the crowd is behind you and you are the man.

You just know Harry is going to score. Give him three chances and he will score at least one. You can’t expect him to score with every chance but he hits the target and forces saves.

It has been a magical year for him. He has eight hat-tricks in 12 months. I got one — just one — in the league, against Birmingham City. It’s not easy to score a hat-trick.

Yet everything Harry touches turns to gold and hopefully he will do that on the big occasions, like cup finals and european games. That’s when you have to prove something.

I remember when Chelsea played Kurt Zouma in midfield and he marked Harry out of the game in the League Cup final at Wembley in 2015.

He didn’t get a kick. But Harry has pushed himself on since then. I don’t think that would happen now.

And he will have the opportunity to perform at the World Cup next summer in Russia. The frightening thing for Tottenham is that everybody is going to be after him now. There are going to be whispers about Real Madrid and Barcelona. They’re going to be throwing money at him.

We all hope he stays and carries on the way he is because what an exciting time to be at Tottenham with a new stadium and a good team.

It is not easy to put the ball in the net but you have to rely on others and the delivery from Christian eriksen for Harry’s first goal against Southampton on Boxing Day was excellent.

If Harry stays at Tottenham and is lucky enough to avoid injury he will carry on scoring goals in this team. He will catch me — on 174 — for sure. To catch the great Jimmy Greaves on 266 goals is different.

That target is a long way off but I don’t think Harry is too worried about that at the moment.

He’s a smashing fella. None of this has gone to his head. His feet are on the ground. He must be a manager’s dream.