It should not be a downcast return to the bread and butter of league for football this weekend, even though Swansea City's FA Cup campaign was brought to an early end last Sunday as they were beaten by West Bromwich Albion on penalties.
Their head coach has just been nominated for December’s manager of the month award and four wins out of six, with three clean cheers, points to a team heading in the right direction.
Vitor Matos could have been forgiven for wondering how his side did not progress into the fourth round after an encouraging display against the managerless Midlanders.
Indeed, the Baggies went into the match having lost 10 successive away matches in a row, and while the match result will go down as a 2-2 draw following extra-time, they did at least emerge victorious by a scoreline of 6-5 on spot-kicks.
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Welsh youth international Ollie Bostock will rightly earn plenty of praise after teeing up Jed Wallace to put West Brom ahead in extra-time in addition to netting the winning spot-kick- while defeat meant Swansea have progressed from just four of the last 13 FA Cup ties when facing opposition from the same league as themselves.
But while it's ultimately a case of back to the Championship grind for Matos and his troops, the Portuguese boss can take plenty from his side's cup showing - which was the third time in just 11 games that the head coach has faced the Baggies since being named as Alan Sheehan's successor in November.
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There was plenty of tenacity and energy from the Swans early on, and while they didn't overly trouble Josh Griffiths for long spells, they were comfortably the better side during the 120 minutes prior to the shootout.
They had 60% of the possession, 23 shots, 10 more than West Brom, seven of which were on target compared to the Baggies' three.
The hosts also had double the amount of touches in the opposition box (38) than West Brom (19) managed in the Swansea box, while Griffiths went on to end the contest having made five saves compared to just one for stand-in Swansea goalkeeper Andy Fisher.
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Eom Ji-sung and Ronald have been below par far too often this season, but both made an impact against James Morrison's side, particularly the former who opened the scoring in wonderful fashion with just his second goal of the campaign.
Josh Tymon put in a superb shift at left-back, while on the opposite side of the back four, an understandably rusty Joel Ward made his debut having joined as a free agent last week.
Crucially, there was a positive impact from the bench, with substitutes Josh Key and Zeidane Inoussa combining for the home side's second goal.
Malick Yalcouyé was also a shining light after being introduced in the 83rd minute, and he was desperately unfortunate to be denied by the post following a slick team move midway through the opening half of extra-time.
The focus now has switched to Saturday's visit of Birmingham City - who sit just three places and two points above Matos' men with 20 league games of the regular season still to be played.
And the Swansea boss, despite defeat, was evidently pleased with so much of his side's showing on Sunday.
“One big thing I think we can take is the reaction we showed in the game, the boys were really showing character and willing to keep trying to get the game to go our way," he said.
“We dominated most of the game, we had the better chances, but when it comes down to penalties this is sometimes how things can go."
The opportunity to rectify the loss so quickly represents a real opportunity, and the Swans have won each of their previous four league matches on home soil, too.
On the flip side, the Blues are winless on the road in their last seven league games, losing six in that run.
Last Sunday was ultimately a real disappointment, but there was more than enough in Swansea's display to give them the confidence of returning to Championship action in positive fashion at the weekend.
