Middlesbrough transferred Cristhian Stuani to Girona in La Liga in July 2017, and the Uruguayan international’s deadly goalscoring record in Spain must have been a source of concern for the Boro Premier League.
Middlesbrough, led by Aitor Karanka, aimed to secure their return to the Premier League after winning automatic promotion from the Championship in the 2016/17 season.
Boro brought in a number of high-profile players on eye-catching deals to improve their prospects of survival, making it obvious that their purpose was not merely to survive but also to confidently and comfortably restore their place among the big boys.
However, the season did not go as planned, and the club was relegated back to the Championship. In the summer of 2017, a number of players left the Riverside, including Cristhian Stuani, an out of favour forward.
He signed with Spanish top-flight club Girona, and what he would go on to achieve and how he would do it would undoubtedly have given Middlesbrough’s decision-makers a lot of restless nights.
Cristhian Stuani plays major role in Middlesbrough’s Premier League promotion as a winger
Signed for a reported fee of £2.8m from Spanish La Liga team Espanyol in the summer of 2015, Stuani was added to the Middlesbrough assault in the belief that he might assist deliver the goals to fire Boro back to the Premier League.
The club had came within a whisker of top-flight promotion the season prior but lost out to Norwich City in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium.
He’d arrived as a flexible attacker capable of playing both as a centre-forward and as a winger, but Karanka quickly made it clear that he preferred to use him as the latter. Whether on the left or right, Stuani would need to adjust to this role if he was to be an instant success on Teesside.
| Stuani’s Middlesbrough career stats by position – per Transfermarkt | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Position | Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| Left-winger | 30 | 5 | 1 |
| Right-winger | 22 | 6 | 0 |
| Centre-forward | 12 | 3 | 0 |
| Second striker | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Fortunately for Middlesbrough, he did, scoring 11 goals and one assist in 40 games during the 2015/16 season. This was enough to make him the club’s top scorer in all competitions during his debut season.
Boro’s team has plenty of attacking alternatives for Karanka to pick from in the 2016/17 Premier League season, thanks to the additions of Alvaro Negredo, Viktor Fischer, Adama Traore, Patrick Bamford, Rudy Gestede, and Gaston Ramirez.
As a result, Stuani had to fight hard to stay in the team, and with Negredo firmly established as Karanka’s centre-forward, the Uruguayan would again find opportunities out wide.
Stuani scored four goals in 23 top-flight matches, but Boro was relegated to the Championship after only one season.
Stuani slots back into centre-forward role with Girona and the goals start flying in for the former Middlesbrough man
Stuani found a way out of Riverside by returning to La Liga and relocating to Girona permanently.
The Catalans chose a different tactic with Stuani, deploying him as a centre-forward instead, and it paid off handsomely.
Stuani scored 21 and 19 league goals for Girona in his first two seasons in La Liga, before the team was demoted to Spain’s second level in 2019.
Stuani remained faithful to them despite being linked with Nottingham Forest, Celtic, and even Barcelona following their relegation.
Over the next three seasons in La Liga 2, he scored 31, 10, and 24 league goals, respectively, and played an important role in Girona’s eventual promotion to the top flight in 2022.
Stuani scored nine league goals in his two seasons back in La Liga, from 2022/23 to 2023/24, and added more in other cup tournaments.
Since leaving Middlesbrough and joining Girona in 2017, he has had double-digit scoring seasons in all competitions in each of his seven complete seasons at the club. During that time, he only played as a centre forward.
Had Middlesbrough deployed Stuani as a centre-forward in the Premier League, it might have made a major difference
Middlesbrough’s relegation from the Premier League in 2017 was due in large part to a lack of goals. Boro scored a league-low 27 goals in the top tier that season, with Negredo’s nine goals enough to become him top scorer.
Stuani’s four goals were enough to make him the runner-up, as he was always a player who shown a strong predatory instinct in front of the net. Many Middlesbrough fans wanted to see him play more through the middle, but that was rarely the case.
After seeing what he’s accomplished in Spain since moving to Girona, where he’s only played as a centre-forward, there must be some residual remorse at Rockliffe Park about what could have been with Stuani on Teesside.
He was still a vital and successful winger, but he has now demonstrated that his finest goal-scoring form comes when he is placed in the middle.
Leave a Reply