Tottenham reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup last weekend with a comfortable 3-0 success away at Championship play-off hopefuls Fulham.

A Harry Kane hat-trick helped Mauricio Pochettino’s men end a tricky week with a much-needed victory, given that they had lost to both Liverpool and Gent in the preceding seven days.

That defeat to Jurgen Klopp’s Reds at Anfield leaves them ten points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea in the title race, and now just two points ahead of Manchester United in sixth, while their narrow loss in Gent means that they are facing a second last-32 exit from the Europa League in the last three years.

Nonetheless, their display at Craven Cottage on Sunday was much more like it, and they’ll take great confidence from that into their second leg with the Belgian outfit at White Hart Lane on Thursday.

Clearly though, there is still much room for improvement at Tottenham, so here are THREE things that Pochettino and his Spurs team must improve ahead of the run in…

Consistency

Spurs’ last four matches in all competitions have seen them win twice and lose twice, with an FA Cup success over Fulham and victory at home to Middlesbrough intertwined with defeats to Gent and Liverpool.

This suggests that we’re still not sure what Tottenham will turn up on any given day.

They were comfortably outplayed at Anfield on February 11, just when they needed a response after seeing Chelsea beat Arsenal earlier in the day, before meekly succumbing to Gent in the Europa League last Thursday.

And, just when Fulham fans would have foreseen an upset against a struggling Spurs, Pochettino’s men go and produce an excellent display to beat the Cottagers in the fifth round of the FA Cup on Sunday.

There seems to be very little middle ground with Spurs – they are either absolutely brilliant, or sluggish and not at the races – and it’s something that they need to improve upon if they are to finish in the top four, or challenge for the Europa League and FA Cup titles.

European performances

This is something that needs improving over the coming days otherwise there will be no more European football for Tottenham this term, but there is clearly some sort of mental barrier when Spurs appear in Europe.

They were not the fast-flowing, attacking Spurs in the Champions League group stages earlier in the campaign, whether they were playing at Wembley or not, and their recent Europa League exploits, for a team as good as theirs, isn’t that good.

A round of 32 and two round of 16 exits aren’t reflective of the team and the sort of players Pochettino has at his disposal, and they are staring another early exit in the face after a poor display in Gent last week.

The Spurs boss put out a strong team against the Belgian outfit and again didn’t perform in Europe, but they’ll need to on Thursday if they are to stay in the Europa League.

Put themselves in position to win trophies

It’s fair to say that Pochettino isn’t the biggest fan of the Europa League, and perhaps the last three exits are a reflection of its lowly priority in Spurs’ season.

However, Tottenham haven’t won a trophy since the 2008 League Cup, when they beat Chelsea in the final at Wembley, and last Sunday was the 3,284th day since that triumph, which means they have now waited for silverware longer than Arsenal did between 2005 and 2014.

Clearly, a club of Spurs’ standing – in and around the top four for several years – should be competing for silverware every season.

They are into the last eight of the FA Cup, and face League One side Millwall in the next round, and they are certainly a better team on paper than Gent, so should be able to overturn that one-goal deficit at Wembley on Thursday.

Pochettino’s men need to put themselves into positions to win trophies – their last FA Cup title was in 1991, and their last European title was in 1984, yet both of those droughts could be ended this season.