Robert Huth

By Craig · Published 31 October 2026

Robert Huth won the Premier League three times. Two of those medals came at Chelsea, where he was a young centre-back who mostly watched. The third came at Leicester, and he scored the goals to prove he'd earned it.

Clubs

Chelsea, Middlesbrough, Stoke City, Leicester City

Premier League

322 appearances, 21 goals

Honours

Premier League 2004/05 and 2005/06 (Chelsea), 2015/16 (Leicester)

International

Germany, 19 caps, 2 goals, third place at the 2006 World Cup

Fantasy price

£5.5m in 2015/16

How he arrived

Huth was born in Biesdorf, East Berlin, in August 1984 and came through the youth system at Union Berlin. Claudio Ranieri brought him to Chelsea in 2001, and he made his Premier League debut on the last day of that season, aged 17, coming on for Jesper Grønkjær at half-time in a 3-1 home defeat to Aston Villa.

Under José Mourinho he won two titles but played only 22 league games across those two seasons. So he went looking for football. Middlesbrough paid £6m in August 2006, and three years later Stoke made him a club-record £5m signing. That was where he became the Huth the streets remember: a centre-back who defended his own box like it owed him money and attacked the other one at every set piece. He played 149 Premier League games for Stoke and scored 13.

By February 2015 he had played once all season, and on 2 February he joined Leicester on loan. At the start of April they were bottom, with 19 points from 29 games. They won seven of their last nine and finished 14th. Huth said later that he was "almost a little bit prouder" of that than of the title. Leicester made the move permanent in June 2015.

The moment: Tottenham, White Hart Lane, 13 January 2016

Seven minutes from time, with the game goalless, Christian Fuchs swung in a corner and Huth headed it into the top corner past Hugo Lloris. Leicester won 1-0 and went level with Arsenal at the top. Anyone who still thought this was a phase had to think again.

The moment: Manchester City, the Etihad, 6 February 2016

Inside three minutes, Riyad Mahrez's free kick came across and Huth bundled it in off Martín Demichelis. Mahrez made it two. On the hour, Huth rose above Demichelis and Aleksandar Kolarov to head in a corner. Sergio Agüero's late goal didn't matter. Leicester won 3-1 and went six points clear at the top.

Why the streets won't forget

Because centre-backs aren't supposed to win title races, and Huth helped win one.Leicester's 2015/16 is remembered for Jamie Vardy's goals, Riyad Mahrez's tricks and N'Golo Kanté's running. But when they went to Spurs and City that winter, Huth scored the goals, and all three of his league goals that season came in those two wins.

Because he was there for both halves of the most unlikely year in Premier League history: bottom in April 2015, champions barely a year later. Plenty of players have won a title. Very few were in the side that clawed its way off the bottom first.

And because he was never anybody's idea of a pin-up. He was a defender who enjoyed defending, who finished third at a World Cup with Germany in 2006, and who, on 1 May 2016, picked up a three-match ban for pulling Marouane Fellaini's hair. The streets never needed him to be pretty.

Where is he now

Huth didn't play a Premier League game in 2017/18 and retired on 11 January 2019. He studied to become a sporting director, and in October 2022 Leicester brought him back as their loans manager. A later report said he was likely to leave that job, possibly for a role at another club.

Which seasons can you draft him in?

Eight. His Chelsea years and his first two seasons at Middlesbrough, when he wasn't a regular, don't make the game's squads, and nor does 2014/15, when he had played once for Stoke before the loan to Leicester.

Want him at the back of your retro fantasy football team? Pick him in2015/16, the title season, for £5.5m. His team-mateShinji Okazaki is £6.0m.