Friend reveals surprise name for Middlesbrough’s most skilful player

George Friend has revealed who he believes to be the most skilful player at Middlesbrough, and has risked putting his team-mates’ noses out of joint by opting for fellow defender Daniel Ayala.

As Middlesbrough return to the Premier League this season, they do so with a number of talented attacking players, such as Alvaro Negredo, Adama Traore and Gaston Ramirez.

But while left-back Friend admits Uruguayan international Ramirez has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, it is centre-back Ayala who is the real star of the show.

At 25 Ayala is yet to make his senior debut for Spain and has just one under-21 appearance under his belt.

But Friend is full of praise for his fellow defender’s showboating skills, even if he doesn’t want them to come out during games.

“Gaston Ramirez is pretty skilful,” Friend said. “He can use both feet and you can’t knock him off the ball.

“He looks like a rake but you try and knock him off but you can’t.

“But I would say that the most skilful player at the club, and the lads won’t like this, is Daniel Ayala, our centre-half.

“When we do our little box, possession games in training he tries to pull off all these little tricks and to be fair to him he pulls them off most of the time.

“But I don’t like him doing them in the games because he is a centre-half!”