Blind Expects Chelsea Resurgence In 2016

Chelsea might be languishing in the bottom half of the Barclays Premier League table but Daley Blind insists Manchester United would be “foolish” to underestimate the champions ahead of today’s tea-time kick-off at Old Trafford.

The Blues parted ways with the club’s most successful manager of all time, Jose Mourinho, earlier this month following a tumultuous and disappointing start to the season. Blind's former national-team coach Guus Hiddink is now in temporary charge at Chelsea and while retaining the title is seemingly out of reach, their mission is to rediscover the imperious form that helped them to win the league by eight points last term.

“It would be foolish to underestimate them," Blind told MUTV. "I think they have a lot of quality players and they are still the team that won the title last season so you cannot underestimate them. We have to be sharp because they have a lot of players who can make the difference.

“It’s still a big game, no matter where they are in the league. Of course there is more attention when both teams are at the top of the table but it’s still a big game. It is going to be a great occasion.”

As a four-time Eredivisie winner with former club Ajax, Blind understands how to successfully defend a league title and the versatile defender acknowledges Chelsea have struggled with that objective this season. However, he does expect a difficult match against the west London club this evening.

“At Ajax, in almost every year we were champions, we were second, third or fourth before Christmas and then we started to come back, winning every game and became champions,” he says.

“I was champion of Holland four times in a row and teams really wanted to win against us. You can see it in the Premier League with Chelsea and a club like United is the same, everyone wants to beat us."