Antonio Conte's Tottenham side lost 1-0 to Middlesbrough in the FA Cup, despite the Italian's attempts to change tactics ahead of extra time.
Spurs had beaten Morecambe and Brighton to get to the fifth round of the competition but failed to take their chances to get a victory at the Riverside Stadium.
Conte has had a successful managerial career so far, winning league titles with Chelsea, Juventus and Inter Milan, so there was hope he could bring some of this success to N17.
The Lilywhites now don't have any chance of winning silverware this season, but can still battle to get a top four spot to ensure they have Champions League football next season.
There have been a number of criticisms of Tottenham this season, from their business during the January transfer window to lack of creativity on the pitch.
What is becoming clear as the matches wear on is that there is a failure to consistently produce solid displays which get positive results.
The blame can be put down to a number of things: the players themselves, the manager's choices, poor recruitment - all of which fans have pointed out.
Conte has spoken about the hard work that is needed and on numerous occasions mentioned patience and time that he needs to help take his Spurs squad to the next level.
"We have to use the defeats to learn, to continue to improve in many aspects, not only football aspects but also character and spirit and desire to be strong," he explained.
One thing which Conte has been criticised by some fans and pundits for is his formation choice.
The 52-year-old has used a 3-4-3/3-5-2 set-up at numerous clubs and so it wasn't a shock when he immediately implemented that on his Tottenham squad.
In the thrilling 3-2 victory against Man City, against a team with a high press and who play a lot of possession football, Spurs were able to utilise the gaps left and finish the game with three points.
However, when it comes down to teams that prefer to sit back and play deep, such as the likes of Burnley and Southampton, it was clear that the Lilywhites struggled to break these such teams down and both matches ended in defeats.
Some were calling for Conte to change the formation and there then becomes the question of should the set-up that has worked at numerous clubs for a successful manager be changed or is it in fact the players that need upgrading?
The players Conte has cannot now be changed until the summer, which only leaves him with changing his favoured formation.
However, when he did just that against Middlesbrough, the reasons he hadn't previously were made clear.
It took the Italian until the 81st minute to make his first substitutions, which saw Ryan Sessegnon and Matt Doherty replaced with Steven Bergwijn and Emerson Royal.
This changed the 3-4-2-1 to a back four which consisted of the Brazilian, Cristian Romero, Eric Dier and Ben Davies but this may have in fact made problems worse.
Royal has struggled to make an impact in various games this season, as a wing-back. Yet when the wing-backs, which are so important in Conte's set-up, were taken out of the game and he was put into a back four, it didn't seem to help.
The 23-year-old again seemed unorganised and unaware of the players around him which although is also down to his teammates too, he failed to have the defensive impact required and it was him playing Josh Coburn onside for the winning goal.
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With the back four clearly not working, the Italian made another substitution with Sergio Reguilon replacing Dejan Kulusevski in the 105th minute to go back to the back three/five.
Despite a few late chances for the Lilywhites in extra time and after the changes had been made, they just couldn't convert those chances into goals and get anything out of the game.
Therefore there are now concerns that if a change in formation doesn't work and the squad can't change until the summer, where does Conte go from here?
There needs to be a balance of choosing the right players, for the right formation, against the right team, but do Tottenham have the squad depth to fulfil all of those criteria?
Spurs' next opponents are Everton, who have played with a back four in their last few matches and will go into the game needing three points, as they are currently just a point outside the relegation zone.
The Italian will have had five full days to prepare for the tie and will need to think about how he wants to set his side up to give them the best possible chance of getting a much needed win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
