"Results and performances have not met the club's expectations, leaving the club mid-table without any clear path to sustained improvement," a statement from Chelsea FC read when Frank Lampard was relieved of his duties in January 2021. The club legend spent 18 months in charge of the Blues in tricky circumstances but could not successfully implement his ideology on the side.
Lampard led the Blues to a fourth-place finish in the 2020/21 season, which was seen as a resounding success after the club were banned from all transfer activity in the summer before. It seemed that Lampard did the difficult bit, and the rest would be smoother in his tenure at Chelsea.
That was not the case, however. Lampard's last Premier League match in charge of Chelsea came on January 19, where the Blues were beaten 2-0 at Leicester City - a defeat that saw them slump to eighth in the table. That spelt the end for Lampard, who was then sacked in typical Chelsea fashion under Roman Abramovich.
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The decision was criticised in some quarters, but that was quickly forgotten and in walked Thomas Tuchel.
The highly-rated German coach was available after leaving Paris Saint-Germain, and Chelsea saw it as too good of an opportunity to overlook. Tuchel came in and immediately looked to push his style on the Blues squad, who were short of confidence after a disappointing first half of the season.
With that, it was clear to see that he was working in his first few matches, although there were signs that the system still needed to be worked on - which was to be expected. The early signs were that Chelsea's winning "DNA" was on its way back.
As many say on a regular basis: the sign of a great team are ones that can grind out a victory without playing well. That's what Chelsea were doing. Tuchel set up the defence in his own way, and whatever he did, the formula was getting results.
In the German's first seven matches - in all competitions - in the Chelsea dugout, the side kept five clean sheets, conceding just two goals in the process. The Blues' recent "DNA" that we saw under two former managers, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, was to have a solid defence as the side's foundation and then let the attacking players do their own thing.
When Lampard was manager, Chelsea could not find the correct balance between defence and attack. If one of them was working, the other tended to be lacking - or sometimes even both not being used to the desired impact.
The "DNA" Conte, more recently, blooded back into the Chelsea squad was returning. Tuchel, like Conte and Mourinho, is a proven winner. He was, and still is, the right man for Chelsea and vice-versa, with Tuchel needing a fresh start following his PSG tenure.
Manchester United's interim manager Ralf Rangnick recently spoke about the Old Trafford club's "DNA" and how some of the players are lacking the physicality that is needed to compete in the Premier League. He said after Saturday's 1-1 draw with Leicester City: "It also has to be a little bit in the DNA of a player.
"It is difficult to change a technically great player into a physical, aggressive player, and we have a lot of technical players. On a day when our game is fluid, and we are in our rhythm, we have shown in the past we can outplay other teams but today was difficult.
"Leicester were aggressive and physical in many parts of the game, and we had problems with them. It is difficult to change. I do not think it is to do with mindset, and it is to do with the DNA of players."
Rangnick talks about some of the physicality issues his squad have, something that has supposedly been in United's "DNA" for a while now. Chelsea have rediscovered theirs under Tuchel, the winning ways Conte and Mourinho have brought to the club in recent times, and don't let Saturday's blip against Brentford distract you from that.
