Jose Mourinho comes up against former club Chelsea on Sunday in his first game against the Blues as Tottenham manager.
Without a job at the start of the season for the first time since 2000, the enigmatic Portuguese swapped the dug-out for the television studio and was a pundit for the opening three months on Sky Sports.
Featuring regularly on the channel's flagship Super Sunday programme of games, Mourinho impressed with his insightful, detailed analysis - but what did Jose say about his opponents this weekend to raise the stakes?
Jose's first appearance was on the opening weekend of the season, when Chelsea travelled to Old Trafford to face Manchester United.
For Frank Lampard - who had arguably the best years of his career in Mourinho's first spell at Chelsea in the middle of the last decade - it was his first competitive game as Chelsea manager.
Even before the game, Mourinho did not put Chelsea in his list of title contenders, which included Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham (significantly) and jokingly 'Man City B team'.
As for the game itself, it was a harsh first lesson for Lampard on his Premier League managerial debut.
Despite going close on numerous occasions, Chelsea couldn't find a breakthrough and leaked four goals at the other end - a humiliating defeat in his first game in charge.
Afterwards, Mourinho admitted he could not get his head around the fact key players such as Willian and N'Golo Kante were not playing and queried the selection of Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham.
'You look to the performance of Mason Mount, the performance of Tammy Abraham, you look to the performance even of (Andreas Christensen and for matches of this dimension you need a little bit more. At the beginning of the season you have to go for the ones who you think will give you more,' Mourinho said on his Sky Sports debut.
'If Willian is injured, I understand that he is not here. If Willian is here, and just late with his preparation, I do not understand why Willian is not here.
'To play 20 or 30 minutes you don't need to be fit. You can come from three weeks injury and if you have the right mentality you can play.
'If Kante can play 30/35 minutes, he can start the game.'
Further down the line in September, Mourinho was even sturdier in his assessment of the Blues.
After a 2-1 defeat at home to Liverpool, when they again missed opportunities to salvage something from the game, the Portuguese insisted Lampard's side were 'far away from being able to compete for titles'.
'I hope they don't get used to it [losing] - that's the important thing,' Mourinho said, bluntly.
'I think when you get used to it, big clubs stop being big clubs. They shouldn't get used to it.
The result meant Chelsea fell 10 points behind Liverpool at the time - and Mourinho made it apparent in no uncertain terms that they were a work in progress.
'The reality of the numbers say Liverpool are 10 points ahead of Chelsea - they aren't going to fight for the title.
'I like their ideas. I think their style of play is being adapted to what football is like nowadays and adapted to the profile of the players they now have.
'In this moment, they are far away from being able to compete for titles.'
His final appearance in the Sky studio came during coverage of Liverpool's 3-1 win against Manchester City on November 10.
Unsurprisingly, his thoughts on Chelsea's prospects this season had seemingly not altered despite an upturn of form.
'In the first weekend I was worried and I am still worried in the big matches,' Mourinho insisted.
'They lost twice against [Manchester] United, they lost against Liverpool at home and they conceded four against Ajax.'
So, if Frank Lampard's Chelsea team needed any extra motivation when they travel to north London on Sunday, they've got it.
Mourinho was brutally honest in his assessment of the first few months of the Lampard era, and in many ways he has been proven right with Chelsea's recent run of four defeats in five Premier League games.
But nonetheless, it'll be another test for Mourinho's side and after losing to Manchester United at the beginning of December, he won't want to head into Christmas with another setback against a former club, and where his topsy-turvy managerial career started on these shores.
