Chelsea should not be expecting any miracles from him according to the interim manager Rafa Benitez. The Spaniard was appointed as the replacement for Roberto di Matteo a few weeks back. He has managed to help the club regain the form in recent weeks, while he has also managed to get the best out of the Spaniard Fernando Torres. Even though the club lost in the final of the Club World Cup, the resurgence in the Rafa Benitez has been extremely good. The club has not only been sound defensively, but they have also managed to score many goals as well.

The recent 1-0 defeat at the hands of QPR may have ruled him out of the title race, but Chelsea still remain in contention for three more trophies. They are the semi-final of the League cup, while they have progressed to the next round of the Europa league and the FA Cup. Despite this, there is a feeling that Benitez is just keeping the seat warm for the former Barcelona manager Guardiola, who has always been the first preference of the owner Roman Abramovich. Guardiola, though, is currently on sabbatical and is only expected to return to management in the summer. Benitez, though, has said that fans should not be expecting miracles from him.

“This year you can see is a year of transition. Some new players are coming in, so it’s ­different. I don’t need to convince anybody of that. You can see that new players have come in and some players are ­getting older, it’s normal. We have enough intelligence to analyse this and work with it. When you’re not close to your ­target, which is ­winning the title, it’s easy for players to lose focus,” said Benitez, whose Chelsea team are 14 points behind United in the table.