It’s a year almost to the day since Philip Clarke issued Tesco’s first profit warning in two decades.

As much as anything else, the retailer’s Christmas trading results today - with like for like sales growing by 1.8% - show how quickly fortunes can change, especially when you take into account it was only in October when Clarke’s warning of a fall in profits actually materialised.

Unsurprisingly, the Tesco CEO appeared much more confident when delivering this year’s even better than expected results.

A sign of that confidence is that he felt ready to appoint COO Chris Bush as new UK managing director, freeing himself up to put some more of his energies into the many challenges facing Tesco’s global empire.

Clarke spoke convincingly of a “new sense of energy and optimism” in the business but the wildly fluctuating fortunes of the leading supermarkets - most of whom have been hailed as the ones to follow by analysts at some point in those turbulent 12 months - will remind him that form, recaptured or not, is only temporary.

Much further from his grasp is the aim to become top of the class in digital as the UK’s “multichannel retailer of choice”.

With an 18% rise in online food sales - and with five per cent of those through click and collect - Tesco has sampled a tantalising taste of the rich pickings for online companies that tap into the trends of today’s new customer.

But away from food it is much further behind the curve.

Hence, while Bush looks like a steady pair of hands to steer the Tesco ship, the arrival of former Amazon UK boss Robin Terrell looks set to kick start a drive by Tesco to up the digital stakes.

What Clarke and Bush daren’t do, however, is take their eyes off the ball. It would be all too easy for stores, recently refreshed with new staff, better service, warmer layouts and improved availability to slip back.

“There was a sense of disappointment that last year as a company we faltered and we’ve made fundamental changes,” said Clarke while acknowledging the latest figures represent just six weeks of performance.

It will take a while longer to see if the Tesco recovery is the real deal or not - but as with so many things momentum is crucial and Tesco certainly has that is spades just now.

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