Alex McLeish fears Rafa Benitez has no chance of winning over Chelsea fans.

McLeish was as unpopular a choice with Aston Villa fans last season when he moved across the city from Birmingham as Benitez is with Chelsea now.

He told the Daily Express: "Rafa is deploying what I did and that was 'I'll change people's minds'.

"By winning games I'll get results, I thought. We started OK but then we hit the cartload of injuries and I lost the captain [Stiliyan Petrov with leukaemia], and you don't get the consistency of selection that you crave.

"It got difficult. Too many draws - 17. We snatched draws from the jaws of victory. That turned the tide a wee bit against myself and there would always have been the noisy minority anyway."