It’s been a strange season for Tottenham.

The north London side have had to put up with a stellar European campaign in which they won more points than any other side in the Champions League group stage, and a fairly frustrating domestic front, where Mauricio Pochettino’s side currently find themselves below Burnley in the Premier League table and dumped out of the League Cup by West Ham, although they may not care too deeply about that fact.

The move to Wembley Stadium to play their home games in front of a bigger, yet less noisy, crowd was always going to make for a difficult season at home, but it’s actually the away form which has proven the worst offender: all but one of Spurs’ five defeats in the Premier League so far this season have come away from home.

Indeed, at home, they started with no win in their first three, but since then, they’ve won every game except for a disappointing draw with Watford on a day when they played most of the second half with 10 men after the expulsion of Davinson Sanchez.

The fact that their away form has seen them fall so far in the league, could well be a blessing for Tottenham, though.

This season was always the one which would be the most difficult for Pochettino’s rebooted Spurs given their temporary move to Wembley, but the last two seasons have also seen the rise of the rest of the top six, meaning things are more difficult anyway.

But at this particular point in Tottenham’s progression, the one criticism will always remain that they need to win a trophy soon. Whether or not that’s unfair on a team who, given their financial resources, are punching above their weight is up for debate. But the fact is that this season is their best chance for quite some time.

Ensuring a top four finish and a Champions League place to kick off the new era in the new stadium is clearly an important priority for Spurs between now and the rest of the season, but finding themselves already so far back in the league means that this is a chance to prioritise cup competitions in a way that they haven’t been able to do for the past few seasons, when they were hoping to pounce on slip-ups from the leaders in order to land their first Premier League title.

This year, both the FA Cup and even, whisper it, the Champions League could still be on for Tottenham, who have shown that they can compete with the very best in Europe this autumn, and who have shown over the last few seasons that they can beat any side in England, too. They are certainly capable of winning something.

And so even if you do think it’s unfair to suggest that Tottenham need to win something soon or risk fading away from memory in the future because they had no silverware to show for this period of relative success, it shouldn’t be unfair to suggest that this season is one where cup success rather than league position should be the priority.

Mauricio Pochettino and his young side have the chance to cap off a remarkable period of sustained improvement by winning a trophy. And a first FA Cup since 1991, or even a first European trophy since the 1980s, shouldn’t be foregone in favour of making sure there’s a Champions League place waiting for them at the start of next season. Because if they can do that, the winning mentality Pochettino can create at Spurs will be worth much more in the long run.