Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois is confident Guus Hiddink can lead the reigning champions back up the table in the remainder of the season.

Hiddink was appointed as manager until the end of the season after Jose Mourinho was relieved of his duties last week and Courtois is keen to start working with the Dutchman.

"He was here before, he did very well and I think he's a very good manager," Courtois told the official Chelsea website. 

"Hopefully together we can climb back up the table and we're looking forward to starting working with him. We know we have to react, we've started well with the win over Sunderland and have to move forward.

"Whatever has happened stays in the past and now we want to work hard with the new manager to get a good result against Watford."

"We saw last year that we have a lot of quality, we were champions because of that. I don't think a lot has changed since then. We, as a club and players, are used to being at the top of the table, so hopefully step by step we can climb back up and see where we finish at the end of the season."

Courtois was quick to stress Mourinho was not solely responsible for Chelseas struggles so far, though.

"Obviously when a manager goes it's a difficult situation," he added.

"Everybody is sad about what happened because we haven't played well and won games, so we have to react and do better.

"Obviously we don't play to lose but we are responsible as well, we have top players, so we shouldn’t be 15th in the league."