Thibaut Courtois believes leaders Chelsea showed the character of champions when snatching a late 1-0 victory against QPR at Loftus Road. And Courtois believes the Blues will carry that same resilience into Saturday's clash with United at Stamford Bridge.

"If you want to be champions you need to win those kind of games," he told Chelsea TV.

"It's a hard game here at QPR, on a small pitch, it's dry, it wasn't easy to play good football so there were a lot of long balls.

"But Didier Drogba did very well, he was so strong and we showed great character to win that game. The games against Manchester United and Arsenal are two important games so it will be very important to win them.

"But after this feeling (against QPR), we have a good feeling to go into the next ones."