Robert Huth: How to stop Haaland, Mourinho told me too many times I was bad, Lukaku still has Chelsea future & Cucurella signing unnecessary

In the second part of Robert Huth’s exclusive interview with Ladbrokes: Fanzone, the former Leicester and Chelsea defender talked about his bruising meetings with Jose Mourinho plus Romelu Lukaku, Marc Cucurella, William Saliba, Graham Potter and much more.

You can read the first part by clicking on the link, but Huth started the interview on how to stop Manchester City striker Erling Haaland.

How to stop Erling Haaland

Erling Haaland has exceeded expectations up to this point, that goes without saying. We all knew of his talent but there were reasonable question marks around whether he’d be able to adapt to the Premier League straightaway, and he’s just taken things to another level.

In terms of how you deal with him, I wouldn’t just say it’s him. As great a player as he is, you’re dealing with Man City. You could have your best game as a defender against Haaland and still have Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden to deal with. To go one on one against Haaland is tough enough, but their whole team is just so frightening, when you’re defending against them your whole team needs to be on top of their game to have any chance of stopping them from scoring.

We’ve seen players trying to rough him up already, but he loves it. He actually thrives on those ding-dongs. That’s a scary part for defenders, because you think maybe that’s an area you could get the better of him, but he’s totally unphased. He doesn’t really react to it, and when he does, it’s always in a positive way and usually ends with a goal, so you end up getting the reverse effect as a defender.

The best chance you’ve got of success against Haaland is by cutting off the supply. In my opinion that’s all you can do. In terms of in-game self-involvement, it’s minimal at the moment. That’s going to get better with time and experience. But he thrives off crosses, through balls and players putting him in a position to score. He rarely makes a goal which is out of the ordinary and all by himself – it’s usually a good ball into him. In the past I think teams have tended to do better when they’ve cut off that supply to him, but it’s so hard to do for 90 minutes, because we’ve seen so many times he only needs one chance to hit you.

I had one too many meetings with Mourinho where he told me I was bad

I always thought Jose Mourinho was great. I thought he was very fair; when he came in there was a 180-degree change in how we prepared for things. We went from being a nearly team to him coming in and in his first meeting with us telling us we were going to have to win the Premier League. I was so impressed with that. He laid out his plans and told us how we were going to do it, and then told us his expectations of each and every one of us.

Training changed completely. We went from an old-school method under Claudio [Ranieri], which was more than adequate at the time. But Jose took over and it was almost futuristic, the kind of things he had us doing. There was no running, none of that stuff, it was all very data-orientated.

In terms of my position, I think I was 18 when he came in. I was never going to have a ding-dong with him and tell him I wanted to be his first choice. I knew my role, I knew where I was at in my career. I was very much learning on the job. He was great; I mean, he was brutally honest, but I loved it.

If you didn’t meet his standards, he’d give you a chance, and then he’d give you another chance, but by that point if you made a mistake, your time was up. That was the environment he created, and he’s the reason Chelsea became so successful. He laid those foundations and those expectations for the club, every single day. It wasn’t just about what we did on a Saturday, it was every day of your life as a Chelsea player, it was about meeting his standards.

I loved him, to be honest. I thought he was great – he was very black or white. It’s hard to think of many times I got especially positive feedback from him, he wasn’t really one to dish those sort of things out. He was tough. I think I’d have had to have scored six goals in a game to get something positive out of him. But on the other side of things, he had no problem analysing your individual performance. “That was s***, that was s***, that was s***!” and then he’d talk you through your mistakes and how you could improve. I had one too many meetings where he told me I was bad. But it’s a trait that was needed back in the day, and it’s not something everyone can deal with.

Lukaku still has a future at Chelsea

You can forever look at squads and think there’s room for improvement, if not immediately then in the near future. That’s part of the game and it applies to all clubs. In the case of Chelsea, obviously Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is a great option for them right now, but it’s a short-term fix. He’s 33 years old, obviously he’s still ridiculously sharp and fit but time will catch up, so then you look at who your next striker is.

Let’s not forget, Romelu Lukaku is still on Chelsea’s books. If Graham Potter decides he wants him back in the squad next year, who’s to say there isn’t still a future for him at the club? He’s a fantastic player, he knows where the goal is and he knows the division well. It didn’t quite work out with Thomas Tuchel, but a new manager like Potter might want to try to convince him to stick around.

He’s still very much in his prime at 29. If you’re looking ahead for the future, the manager has to be looking at him at least as a potential option. Everyone’s looking for a number nine these days and Lukaku is exactly that. I certainly wouldn’t be ruling it out if I was Potter.

It’s just whether the fans would have him back because he left a pretty sour taste in their mouths, but he’s a great player, and fans can be very forgiving, especially if you’re delivering for their team.

Blues already have Ben Chilwell, do you they really need Cucurella?

Marc Cucurella’s arrival, I thought, was tough on Ben Chilwell. I know he’s been unlucky with injuries but he’s on his way back to full fitness now, back around the England set-up and he’s as good a full-back. If he’s playing at left-back, he’s basically playing as a wing-back because he’s so offensive. He’s so fit, so it’s a bit like ‘did you really need to make that signing?’ I guess with Marcos Alonso going they needed some cover, but it’s a lot of money to have spent on two players in the same position.

In terms of the recruitment, it feels like it was geared towards Tuchel, made all the more obvious by the arrival of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Tuchel knew the guy well from their time together at Dortmund and both men spoke about how much they were looking forward to working with each other again. It was a perfect Tuchel signing, he knows the player, he’s exactly what he needed, he knows how he fits into the team, how he plays, how he runs, his influence on and off the pitch, and then you go and sack the manager after one game with him?

Prior to Tuchel leaving I would say Chelsea got their recruitment bang on and most of the transfers made a lot of sense to me. But already we’re looking at a new manager. You’ve brought in all of these players to suit one guy only to replace him a couple of games into the season.

William Saliba transfer warning

Ultimately, the best players are always going to get snapped up by the bigger sides, so it’s up to Arsenal to make sure they’re competing at the highest level in order for their star players to stick around. In the case of William Saliba, he’s had a bit of time away from the club to improve.

Sometimes you just need to give players that time, some develop quicker than others and clearly Arsenal saw something in Saliba which meant he was worth keeping hold of. Hindsight is awesome, isn’t it? Fans might have been sat on the sofa last season asking why Mikel Arteta let him go out on loan for another season. But who knows how he’d have performed for this side last year? What’s important is that the people in charge got this decision right and things are looking good for him and them right now, that’s for sure.

The whole team has done well, and yes, Saliba has been impressive, but it’s easy to perform better when your team-mates are all doing the same. I never look at a defender purely as a defender in a certain position; it’s always reflective of the team. When you just isolate a position, you can pick out as many good moments as you can bad, but everything becomes a lot easier when the press is right and your job is being made easier. That’s obviously happening at the moment with Arsenal who are functioning really well across the board.

Riyad Mahrez was always paying fines for being late; I don’t think he ever set an alarm!

I’m an old-school East German; of course I never had to pay fines for lateness! I was always on time, always wearing the right thing, I was drilled from a young age about all of that. Over the years though I’ve seen plenty of players who have had to pay up. It’s usually enough for us to take the backroom staff out at the end of the season so it all goes to a good cause. I guess nowadays the fines are much bigger!

One guy who springs to mind for me was Riyad Mahrez at Leicester. It wasn’t so much an arrogance thing on his part, it was just the way he was. He didn’t have time on his mind. He’s a great lad and we got on really, really well, but sometimes you just work with people who are on a different level to you, and time didn’t exist to him. No matter how much you tried to enforce rules and stress the importance of being on time, he’d just ask why. He never did it to be a pain, he just woke up when he woke up. I don’t think he ever set an alarm. It’s crazy really. We trained at 10:30am – how long do you need to sleep?

My top-four prediction changed following Tuchel’s sacking

My opinion on this year’s top four has all changed with the sacking of Thomas Tuchel. I was expecting Chelsea to be right up there, especially after the recruitment they did in the summer. But now I just don’t see them doing it.

I think Arsenal need to finish in the top four. With the money they’ve invested in the team and the time they’ve given Mikel Arteta, you’d have to say it would be a bit of a failure if they didn’t make it this season. It’s really now or never, for me. It’s Arteta’s third year, he’s brought in Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko who have massively improved the team.

In the past, they’ve fallen short with a few games to go, but this year I think they’ll sneak in. They’ve got that real grit, the kind of grit I’ve not seen at that club for a while now. It’s great to see. Arteta’s always on the touchline, fighting every ball and it really translates to the team.

When it’s been tough, they’ve dug each other out, and of course it’s going to get tougher and they’re going to have down days – no one is expecting them to play the perfect season. But so far in the aftermath of those downs, they’ve performed to a really good standard. You can only go off what we’ve seen so far, and for me I think they’ll sneak into that top four with Tottenham, Liverpool and obviously Manchester City.

Graham Potter’s inexperience puts Chelsea out of top-four race

How many times do we see these kind of decisions being made, where a manager is losing their job a couple of days after the transfer window closes? It’s such a vital time for players and managers, so it just doesn’t make sense to me. Whether or not something has gone on behind the scenes, I don’t know.

If you’re Aubameyang, you’re obviously looking forward to working with Tuchel again, and now it’s gone out of the window and you’re playing for a new guy. I can’t make sense of it at all. It would have made much more sense if it had happened before the season started, or if they had given him more time with this new group of players.

We hear managers all the time talking about wanting their own players, and Graham Potter hasn’t been afforded that luxury, so it’ll be interesting to see how he gets them going. Nevertheless, it’s still a fantastic squad so there are no excuses on that front.

Chelsea should really be close to the top four, but I just think in terms of the other managers at the top end of the table – without being disrespectful to Potter whatsoever – the likes of Pep [Guardiola], [Jurgen] Klopp, [Antonio] Conte and [Mikel] Arteta, I think they’re all ahead of him in terms of experience at this level.

I fear that Chelsea will miss out on the top four. Potter’s not had to compete for prizes, for trophies and for Champions League football before – not at this level. The top five or six teams in the division are very close in terms of quality on the pitch, but when it comes to the dugout, there are at least four other sides with more experienced managers which will be a massive advantage over the course of the season.

Arsenal youngster convinced me to move to Premier League and sign for Chelsea

It was actually Moritz Voltz who played a key role in my decision to move to England at such a young age. He made the move to Arsenal a year earlier, and it wasn’t really the done thing back in the day for youngsters in Germany. There were a couple of players who followed suit and there was this feeling back home that the Brits were nicking this German talent. He became a bit of an overnight success story in Germany, and in every interview he gave he would talk about how good it was to be involved with the first team.

One thing that stood out to me was that access to the senior squad. Even if you weren’t directly involved, you’d be on the pitches next to them. That was completely unheard of in Germany; there was a very strict and common ladder you had to climb, going through the ranks from a teenager until you finally worked your way up into the first team. You were very segregated, especially at my club in Berlin. You never got to see the first-team players, let alone speak to them, eat alongside them or train with them. Voltz fed it back to us guys in Germany about how great it was, and I was sold. As soon as I knew there was interest in me from Chelsea, that was it, I was going.

And when I finally made the move, it was absolutely nuts. Of course I was starstruck. I was literally sitting there, around 15 years of age, having lunch with World Cup winners. It was such an awesome environment for me. But me and my personality, I just tried to keep my head down and get on with things. My mind was made up in that trial week that I was going all out because once I’d had that taste, I didn’t want to let it go again.