Zurab Khizanishvili

Zurab Khizanishvili

Personal information
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Position(s)	Defender
Team information
Current team	Blackburn Rovers
Number	3
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 2 january 2007

Zurab Khizanishvili (Georgian: ზურაბ ხიზანიშვილი; born Tbilisi, October 6, 1981) is a Georgian professional football player who currently plays in defense for Blackburn Rovers.

He started his career at Dinamo Tbilisi however he was not guaranteed first team football and joined FC Tbilisi after only one season at Dinamo. He continued his career in Tbilisi by joining Lokomotiv Tbilisi in 1999. He had an excellent start to the campaign and was attracting the interest of some of Europe's top clubs. His contract was eventually cancelled by FIFA after a troubled time at Lokomotiv with injury.

He joined Dundee having had unsuccessful trials at Arsenal, Fulham and West Ham. He quickly made an impact at Dundee and that alerted the attention of fellow SPL team Rangers.

Rangers manager Alex McLeish snapped up Khizanishvili on a Bosman transfer in 2002. He made over 35 appearances in his first season at Rangers. However he gradually fell out of favour and on August 31st 2005 he was allowed to move on loan for the rest of the season to Blackburn Rovers in the English Premiership.

On 10 April 2006 he signed a permanent deal for Blackburn Rovers in a deal rumoured to be worth around about £500k.

He has spent the majority of the 2005/06 fighting for a place with defender Andy Todd to partner Ryan Nelsen. His comfort on the ball and passing range has made up for his lack of strength and occasional lapse of concentration to win over the Rovers fans.

Khizanishvili is also a regular player in the Georgia squad.

Career Stats

• Dinamo Tbilisi 33 Games 2 Goals
• Dundee 51 games 0 goals
• Rangers 63 Games 0 goals
• Blackburn 27 games 1 goals

• International Appearances Georgia 21 games 0 goals

External links

• Zurab Khizanishvili at Soccerbase