Last month, Chelsea had one of those potentially season-defining weeks: with a league match, a Champions League battle against Paris Saint-Germain, and what looked like a tough FA Cup tie.
As it happened Chelsea waltzed through the week, relatively unscathed: with romps at home to Newcastle, and Manchester City's youngsters, and a slender 2-1 defeat in the French capital.
Now, here we are again: though this time the stakes have been upped – in more ways than one.
Guus Hiddink's side know what they need to do in what is the clear focal point of the week: Wednesday's second leg Champions League round of 16 match against Ligue 1's finest.
Stop them scoring, and a 1-0 win will take Chelsea through.
Fail to do that, and with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani at Laurent Blanc's disposal it will be a tall order, then Chelsea need to bag at least three at The Bridge.
The FA Cup sixth round tie, Saturday's 5.30pm kick off at Goodison Park, will be a riotous occasion: with 5,800 Chelsea supporters in the ground, all buoyed by the extra drinking hours and spending money afforded by subsidised match and train/coach tickets.
In the face of the antisocial scheduling, the great show of returned loyalty by Chelsea Football Club indicates how highly they are prioritising the competition, and how much they want fans to buy into it as a route to glory.
Again, Blues know what will be necessary: beat the team on the poorest run of home form in the Premier League (four points from 18 – joint with Crystal Palace), and Wembley beckons.
Though the added emotional fallout from Wednesday night, whichever way it might fall, will certainly up the difficulty factor.
Obviously the fact that Chelsea are a step closer in both competitions, to either glory or crushing elimination, raises the stakes here.
But it is Saturday's Premier League game against Stoke that really queers the pitch.
In mid-February, when this combination of potential fates last collided, Chelsea were fighting on two fronts.
The only ways into Europe were via the cup competitions, and the league could go hang itself.
It is a measure of Hiddink's success, having steered Chelsea to more Premier League points than any other manager since the calendar flipped over to 2016, that Stoke at home in the Premier League now matters.
Three wins in a row, and a Premier League form that has brought 14 points out of 18 (second only to Tottenham), has awakened hope where previously there was none.
Chelsea are now top half, and people are starting to count the gap: seven points behind West Ham for a Europa League slot; eight behind Manchester City for Champions League.
With 10 league games left to play, and the next three of them being against the sides in sixth, seventh and eighth position (having last weekend dispatched the team now ninth), it is starting to look like Chelsea's fate may be in their own hands.
Something which cannot have been said about the club since the rosy days of last April.
Hiddink, relaxed and unflappable, now has a call to make that is almost entirely of his own creation. Something few could see being a necessity when he was pitched into what both he, and his predecessor, admitted was a relegation fight last December.
Is the Premier League now a renewed priority for Chelsea?
The facts remain that the club is three games from Europe in the FA Cup; and six from a repeat of the legendary scenes of 2012 in the Champions League.
What is less clear, at this stage, is what will be needed to win that five-way fight for sixth place in the table.
Hiddink has brought hope, where there was previously none.
Chelsea will this week have to ensure they don't get carried away with that hope, and retain focus on what are still the most achievable targets in their sights.
