{"id":562186,"date":"2020-08-15T14:30:29","date_gmt":"2020-08-15T18:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=562186"},"modified":"2020-08-15T14:30:29","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T18:30:29","slug":"george-friend-becomes-first-birmingham-city-signing-for-aitor-karanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/08\/15\/george-friend-becomes-first-birmingham-city-signing-for-aitor-karanka\/","title":{"rendered":"George Friend Becomes First Birmingham City Signing For Aitor Karanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Birmingham City manager, Aitor Karanaka, has made <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/4f97147d\/George-Friend\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">George Friend<\/a> his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcfc.com\/news\/articles\/2020\/George-Friend-joins-Blues\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first signing since taking over at the club<\/a>. The pair worked together while at Middlesbrough, with the 32-year-old signing a two-year deal at St. Andrews.<\/p>\n<h2>Aitor Karanka Makes George Friend his First Birmingham City Signing<\/h2>\n<h3>&#8216;You Got a Friend in me&#8217;<\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udcf8\u270d\ufe0f Welcome to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BCFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BCFC<\/a>, George. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PfVY6ph1dI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PfVY6ph1dI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; (C) Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BCFC\/status\/1294667667073163264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Karanka has worked with George Friend before. The 32-year-left back, who spent eight years at Middlesbrough, worked under the Spaniard during his three-and-a-half-years at the Riverside Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Boro and Friend won promotion from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/category\/league-football\/championship\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Championship<\/a> in 2015\/16 after finishing as runners-up but came back down from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/category\/premier-league\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Premier League<\/a> after just one season.<\/p>\n<p>The left-back turned out 139 times for Middlesbrough under Karanka&#8217;s stewardship, where he scored three goals and provided 11 assists.<\/p>\n<h3>Friend Career So Far<\/h3>\n<p>Friend began his career at Exeter City. He spent three seasons with the Grecians, in which he won promotion from the Conference League, before joining <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/wolves-club-analysis-news-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wolverhampton Wanderers<\/a> in the Championship.<\/p>\n<p>During his time with Wolves, in which he made eight appearances over two seasons, he spent time away on loan at Millwall, Southend United, Scunthorpe United and Exeter. Friend then transferred to Doncaster Rovers, where he made 64 appearances for the Championship side.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012\/13, Friend joined Middlesbrough. In addition to winning promotion to the Premier League during his eight years with the club, he was also awarded the Community Player of the Year after attending numerous off-field events, as well as winning the players&#8217; Player of the Year award on one occasion.<\/p>\n<p>Friend turned out for Boro 299 times and has made well over 400 career appearances ahead of his Birmingham tenure.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udd35\ud83d\ude4c &quot;I feel very excited. I&#39;ve just met the lads and I&#39;ve seen Aitor who I know well. The Club has ambition, there&#39;s a good feel around the place.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>George Friend spoke to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BluesTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@BluesTV<\/a> after penning a two-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; (C) Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BCFC\/status\/1294673958638366721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"SM0iNiWgTZVKLUGV7WyUiQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/615014412\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'SM0iNiWgTZVKLUGV7WyUiQ',sig:'DFJK5gvGiLQwCK4OZMUalzxLHZCcAgBcjKOZx5CD9Hs=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'615014412',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Birmingham City manager, Aitor Karanaka, has made George Friend his first signing since taking over at the club. The pair worked together while at Middlesbrough, with the 32-year-old signing a two-year deal at St. Andrews. Aitor Karanka Makes George Friend his First Birmingham City Signing &#8216;You Got a Friend in me&#8217; \ud83d\udcf8\u270d\ufe0f Welcome to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":562192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,32,30,28],"tags":[638,1318,197,5281,347,136],"class_list":["post-562186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-championship","category-league-football","category-news","category-transfers","tag-aitor-karanka","tag-birmingham-city","tag-championship","tag-george-friend","tag-middlesbrough","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}