Almost exactly nine years ago, on the first weekend of November 2014, Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham trailed Aston Villa 1-0 going into the final six minutes.
Spurs scrambled an equaliser before Harry Kane's deflected free-kick in stoppage time sealed a dramatic turnaround and changed everything for Pochettino.
The win was the turning point for the manager, kickstarting his joyful transformation of the club over the next five years.
By New Year's Day that season, Spurs had put five goals past champions Chelsea in a landmark win and the following year they were challenging for the title.
Looking back later, Pochettino said Kane's winner at Villa Park was his favourite of the striker's goals because it effectively saved his job.
"It meant for us, for everyone, the possibility to stay [at Spurs]," Pochettino said in 2017. "The team were playing well, but not winning games and we were a bit under pressure. Always in football, when you don't get good results, the first to be sacked is the manager..."
'Playing well but not winning games' neatly applies to Pochettino's Chelsea too and he is again under a degree of pressure as he returns to Spurs for the first time since he was sacked four years ago.
Like his fledgling Spurs team, Chelsea are easy on the eye but struggling to turn possession into points
The parallels between Chelsea's faltering start under Pochettino and his first few months in north London are obvious, even if the head coach believes his current situation is ultimately "tougher"; the Blues have 12 points from 10 games, whereas Spurs managed 11 points from their first nine matches before the wild celebrations at Villa.
Like his fledgling Spurs team, Pochettino's Chelsea are already easy on the eye but struggling to convert possession into points, and the 2-0 reverse to Brentford in their last League outing was a frustrating backwards step following an encouraging run of performances.
Pochettino is not exactly at risk of the sack from a Chelsea hierarchy that is prepared to be patient with the 51-year-old, but he is yet to win over supporters, and could do with another Villa moment to galvanise the fanbase and instill belief in his squad.
"It's a process but I hope it will be the game that will help us to grow quick. Sometimes it is one game, one performance, one result or one goal that can help be the trigger to change and complete the things," said Pochettino, perhaps thinking back to that Kane strike. Where better to get lift-off than at the home of his former club and with Chelsea in the unusual position of being rank outsiders tonight?
Pochettino is likely to receive a mixed reception from the natives who once adored him and his return adds another edge to a derby which hardly needs more spice — not least because he might have been managing Spurs again if Daniel Levy had picked up the phone over the summer.
Encouragingly for the Blues, Pochettino is a master at harnessing the emotion of this kind of occasion and he will try to use Chelsea's underdog status to their advantage by persuading his side they have nothing to lose, which often felt like the key to his standout results at Spurs.
Pochettino is a master at harnessing the emotion of this kind of occasion and will use Chelsea's underdog status
There is no doubt that he will personally be impacted by occasion, which he has described as "special", and the Argentine has made no attempt to play down his connection with Spurs in the build-up.
"We are talking about the emotional links and feelings and that's not broken," Pochettino said.
One question is whether this Chelsea team ultimately has the quality — and specifically the firepower — to end Spurs' unbeaten start to their League season.
Pochettino is beginning to coax the best from his callow but talented squad and build a finely tuned machine, but they are still some way from the finished product.
Nicolas Jackson, for example, is no Kane and nor is he in the class of Heung-min Son although Pochettino has acknowledged that his side will be more effective in an open game, with more space in the final third.
The pace of Ange Postecoglou's revolution at Spurs has reflected unfavourably on Pochettino's own start at Chelsea — and gone a long way to vindicating Levy's decision to overlook him for a second spell — and the Australian and his team are under a different kind of pressure.
A win would take Spurs back to the top of the table — above Manchester City and 17 points clear of Chelsea; after just 10 games, they are increasingly being judged as potential title contenders.
Postecoglou is reluctant to admit comparisons with Pochettino but their blueprints for transforming Tottenham are similar, at least from the outside looking in.
The question for Spurs long term is whether they have learnt lessons from the Pochettino era, and are now ready to really kick on as a club.
If there is a lesson for Chelsea from Pochettino's time at Spurs, it is to ride out this tough start, even if his Villa moment does not arrive this evening.
