Tonight we play Everton at Stamford Bridge which means we welcome back Rafa Benitez who I played for at Chelsea in 2012/13. Rafa will always be remembered as a manager who won the Europa League with us. He came to replace Roberto Di Matteo and he came at not an easy moment because we had won the Champions League and you go to the next season full of expectations and happiness, and then everything went the wrong way and then Rafa came at a time when it was not easy for everybody, because we were dropping into the Europa League and we had so many games to play.We were still in the FA Cup, we reached the semi-finals of the League Cup and we had the FIFA Club World Cup. We ended up with an absolutely crazy schedule and a club-record 69 games played that season.

Rafa came in and suddenly the games were rolling and rolling and rolling without a stop. So there was that firstly and then our rivalry against his former club Liverpool was there as well for the fans.But in the end we managed to win a European trophy and that was a good note on which to leave his interim manager role, which everybody knew at the beginning was the idea of the club, so as players we knew he will be our manager till the end of the season and then the new decision was made for the manager for the next season.So I think he did a good job. He did his best to get us to the Champions League as well. We needed to get up into the top four in the Premier League and we finished third. There were some games you wish went our way like the FIFA Club World Cup final against Corinthians. We were the far better team but couldn't find the goal and lost 1-0 but I think his spell at the club can be seen as a successful one.

I remember Rafa as a very good tactician. He always tries to find the best way for his team to play against the opposition and try to find the weak links you can exploit. He was one of the coaches who likes to address details - what players do and how. You can see the teams he manages are usually tactically well prepared.

We hope the show can go on

Unfortunately, the world is taking a step backwards in terms of the situation with the pandemic so in football, it becomes more complicated for the fans as well as players and staff and people working to try to protect the Premier League.We hope the games go on and there's not many cancellations but of course, this is something which is hard to control. We always try to do the best possible with the rules and make sure that we minimise the risk, and hopefully the situation will be under control and we hope fans will be able to remain in stadiums, because football with fans is completely different than what we experienced without them.We all wish that especially coming up to Christmas, which is usually family time, that everybody will be safe and be able to enjoy this particular time of the year without postponing many games. The Premier League and the football clubs are trying to do as much as they can.

This is the last week before we enter the really busy schedule of Christmas. We have Wolves at the weekend, we have the cup quarter-final against Brentford which are two important games and then Boxing Day, which is a tradition and a special time of the season for the fans and the players as well.Hopefully everything will be able to go ahead and I'm looking forward to it because there's always a special atmosphere during Christmas.

Champions League draw can look different given time

Earlier in the week we all watched the Champions League draw. It was unfortunate because as the mistakes happened in the computer advising on the draw then it was clear that the job was not fair. After the mistake with Man United, maybe the draw could have stopped and restarted without the whole draw being redone but when you go through with the draw with mistakes then I don't think there was any other solution than for the Champions League to be redrawn.Now we can talk about pairings and whether one draw is better than another but you are in the Champions League last 16 and always expect a difficult game. And if you want to win it, you need to be able to beat any opponent.

Any opponent you have to respect because they are in the last 16 not by chance but because they have the quality. Also, there is a quite long time before the last 16 ties are played so the teams who are now in form can be completely out of form by then or vice versa. The draw can look one way on paper initially but when you play almost three months later then everything might look completely different.I want to finish with a special mention to Marina Granovskaia for winning her Director of the Year award.

It's another accolade for the football club after having players high in the Ballon d’Or rankings and we were voted Club of the Year, and it is great to see Marina for her job get the recognition as well. So congratulations to her and hopefully it is the first one of many.