Though a cup run is always nice, as Spurs' Europa League victory last season proved, Thomas Frank's focus has to be on improving the North Londoners' Premier League position.
Just four points from fifth spot
With 27 points to their name at present, they are far enough away from the bottom three so as not to be too concerned.
Indeed, the way West Ham, Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers are playing at the moment, it would take a minor miracle for any one of the current bottom three to still be in the English top-flight next season.
That shouldn't take away from the fact that Spurs have been poor under the Dane's tutelage, though they do, somewhat unbelievably, remain just four points away from fifth spot despite being way down in 13th at present.
Just a short burst of form could see the North Londoners again pressing for a European place.
Postecoglou's mitigating circumstances
After hounding out Ange Postecoglou, even though a ton of injuries meant he did have mitigating circumstances with regards to results and performances, the Lilywhites faithful have wasted no time in turning on Frank.
He hasn't even been able to replicate Postecoglou's swashbuckling playing style, which might've papered over the cracks at the very least.
Indeed, one of the defining images of this or any season is when Djed Spence and Micky van de Ven completely ignored their manager after an insipid defeat to London rivals Chelsea.
It spoke volumes, whatever the Tottenham PR machine would have you believe.
Lange, not Frank, has questions to answer
However, one could also argue that Spurs fans' ire is somewhat misdirected and that Frank has become something of a fall guy at the club, in a not too dissimilar fashion to Postecoglou.
Johan Lange is a 46-year-old Dane who is the current sporting director at Tottenham, and has signed off deals on a number of players that are yet to come good for the club.
The roll call certainly doesn't make great reading for Lange, and with wider knowledge from the masses of his transfer involvement, the heat may well, temporarily at least, divert away from the manager.
To date, Lange has agreed deals totalling £293.5m, for the likes of Antonin Kinsky (£12.5m), Wilson Odobert (£25m), Mathys Tel (£37.3m - including his initial loan fee), Kevin Danso (£21m), Archie Gray (£30m), Dominic Solanke (£55m plus add-ons), Radu Dragusin (£26.7m), Lucas Bergvall (£8.5m) and Xavi Simons (£51.8m).
Not to mention the loans of Randal Kolo Muani (£7.8m), Joao Palhinha (£7m), Ashley Phillips (£2.5m), Yang Min Hyeok (£3.4m) and Kota Takai (£5m).
Though injuries have again played their part, with Solanke having been out long-term, and shorter-term injuries befalling one or two others, none have really lived up to the hype, so to speak.
Frank has to work with what he has
Of course, not every player is going to come into a new club and hit the ground running, particularly if they've come from a foreign league and need to adapt to a new culture, language and place to live on top of getting to grips with things on the pitch.
Though that can be a mitigating factor in one or two instances, to be getting recruitment wrong on so many occasions has to send a warning to other board members.
In Frank's defence, he can only work with what he has, and to that end, if the Lilywhites are going to enter the transfer market again this January, his own recommendations have to be spot on.
Apparent interest in 19-year-old Santos left-back Souza indicates that he and Lange are perhaps barking up the wrong tree again, and are taking punts on players that they hope will work out.
Response after Amorim sacking was telling
After Ruben Amorim was sacked on Monday by Manchester United, a job for which Frank was interviewed, the Dane's response was telling.
"It's very difficult to achieve sustainable success if you change key personnel in clubs, like the head coach and sporting directors," he was quoted as saying.
"If you think you have the right ones and are aligned, you have to do it over a long time, not one and a half years.
"For me, no matter what kind of title you have, it (transfer policy) always needs to be collaborative between the head coach, the sports director, ownership, leadership, whatever. So you're completely aligned in what you do."
It's difficult to decipher whether that's a deliberate jibe to those above him, or a plea to supporters to be a little more understanding of his situation, given that managers/head coaches are generally the ones to fall on their swords when things aren't going as well as can be expected.
That mutual respect is a two-way street, of course, so Frank needs to start getting a run of positive results quickly if he doesn't want to become another candidate to have fallen by the wayside after promising much but delivering little.
