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Zurab Khizanishvili

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

Career

Personal

He is a son of a former USSR international defender Nodar Khizanishvili.

Georgia - Dinamo Tbilisi - FC Tbilisi - Lokomotiv Tbilisi

Khizanishvili started his career at Dinamo Tbilisi where he remained for just one season, before joining FC Tbilisi to improve his chances of playing regular first team football.

In 1999 he was on the move again, joining his previous two clubs' city rivals Lokomotiv Tbilisi. Khizanishvili's form at Lokomotiv piqued the interest of some of Europe's top clubs, though the player's latter days at the club were marred by injury. Khizanishvili was eventually released after his contract with Lokomotiv was terminated.

Scotland - Dundee - Rangers

In March 2001, Zurab joined Dundee, having had unsuccessful trials at Arsenal, Fulham and West Ham.

He quickly made an impact at Dens Park, alerting fellow SPL team Rangers, whom Khizanishvili joined on a Bosman transfer in June 2003 as a replacement for Blackburn-bound defender Lorenzo Amoruso.

Despite making 35 appearances in his first campaign at Ibrox, Zurab gradually fell out of favour and, on August 31, 2005, he was allowed to move on loan for the rest of the season to Blackburn Rovers in the English Premiership.

England - Blackburn Rovers

On 10 April 2006, he signed a permanent deal for Blackburn Rovers in a deal rumoured to be worth around about £500,000. Since joining the Ewood Park outfit, Khizanishvili has become an important member of Mark Hughes's overall defensive personnel, often playing at centre back. Chances have been few in the 2007–08 season for Zurab, however he has always been at hand to step in in case of injury to either Ryan Nelsen or Christopher Samba.

Career statistics

|- |2000-01||rowspan="3"|Dundee||rowspan="3"|Premier League||6||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||6||0 |- |2001-02||18||0||colspan="2"|-||2||0||colspan="2"|-||20||0 |- |2002-03||19||0||5||0||1||0||colspan="2"|-||25||0 |- |2003-04||rowspan="2"|Rangers||rowspan="2"|Premier League||26||0||1||0||3||0||8||0||38||0 |- |2004-05||16||0||1||0||2||0||6||0||25||0 |- |2005-06||rowspan="4"|Blackburn Rovers||rowspan="4"|Premier League||26||1||2||0||4||1||colspan="2"|-||32||2 |- |2006-07||18||0||5||0||1||0||6||0||30||0 |- |2007-08||13||0||1||0||2||0||1||0||17||0 |- |2008-09||||||||||||||||||||85||0||7||0||8||0||14||0||114||057||1||8||0||7||1||7||0||79||2142||1||15||0||15||1||21||0||193||2 |}