The season was not for me, it was for others.

Chelsea wins the FA Cup but I don’t play the semi-final nor the final. I didn’t taste anything.

I feel I participated a bit more in the Champions League but even so it was not the Champions League I wanted to win, not like that. I want to win another Champions League and in a different way.

The fans helped me a lot — and you don’t understand why.

You come from outside and you have played well in this league and, with the Spanish mentality, the first who should have turned against you are the fans. You are not living up to expectations but they still support you. These people are special.

At times I was thinking, ‘I will sit here on the bench, I won’t make any noise, I don’t even want to play.’ But they are demanding that you jump on the pitch and play. They lifted my spirits so many times. Not even my team-mates succeeded in doing that in this way. Whatever I do from now on will be for the fans.

That is why I want to win another Champions League. For them.

I lived things that had not happened to me before. A new manager came in and he was hardly counting on you and what you did in training didn’t count either.

You can’t do anything more but you’re not playing. People encourage you whether you play or not but I didn’t know what to do.

I counted on the support of team-mates that are on the bench, who don’t let themselves sink and always give an example.

Paulo Ferreira, the substitute keepers, the youngsters whose progression has stopped. It helped me to see the panorama sitting on the last step.

You can think ‘Maybe Chelsea was not the team’. But if you are a great player, you have to find your place, I’m not the first one to whom this has happened.

I think I didn’t know how to be a point of reference there. And that is what I am trying to achieve. I am obliged to succeed in making my team-mates need me. When you arrive at a club like this, what you had done up to that point means nothing.

It’s not a question of whether they welcomed me or not it’s the fact you are just one more player. It’s not a team or a club where they look at the details — your gestures, how you train, how you behave.

No, you arrive there and you are one more of the team. You only have to be a star on the pitch.

They are veterans and they don’t have to give an example. If I arrived now again for the first time, I would do things differently.

I would try to be one more of the team and adapt to the situation. Now I know that from the first day you have to think of yourself more and try to demonstrate to your team-mates that you are one more of them.

I was paying attention more to what was my place rather than worrying about earning a place.”