Birmingham City never got what Middlesbrough did with star - He left St. Andrew's after 38 apps | OneFootball

Emilio Nsue is a cult figure on Teesside thanks to his role in Boro's 2016 Premier League promotion - he doesn't share that same tag at St. Andrew's.

Emilio Nsue didn't enjoy the sort of Birmingham City career that had seen him become a cult hero with Middlesbrough.

The 2016/17 season marked the start of a testing period in Birmingham City's history.

After falling out of the Premier League in 2011, the Blues weren't able to make a swift return to the top flight, and only an unforgettable Paul Caddis stoppage time equaliser away at Bolton on the final day of the 2013/14 season prevented the club being relegated to League One.

However, back-to-back 10th-placed finishes in the Championship would follow over the next two seasons, but 2016 was the beginning of a prolonged and ill-fated attempt to avoid relegation.

Emilio Nsue arrived as a Birmingham player in January 2017 in the midst of a turbulent period, but he wouldn't earn a place in the hearts of the St. Andrew's faithful like he did at Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium.

Emilo Nsue helps Middlesbrough win Premier League promotion and becomes Riverside cult hero

Signed by Middlesbrough on a free transfer from Spanish side Real Mallorca in the summer of 2014, Nsue arrived on Teesside as a fairly unknown quantity to Boro supporters.

The Equatorial Guinea international did bring some strong pedigree with him to the North East, however, having spent numerous campaigns in La Liga and La Liga 2 with Mallorca, as well as Real Sociedad and Castellon respectively.

"He is a versatile player who I have known for five years. He is a good lad with a good mentality and approach to the game," Middlesbrough boss Aitor Karanka said of his new recruit at the time.

"As a player he can play in different positions and I am delighted we have agreed a deal to sign him." Versatile he was indeed, as he'd joined Middlesbrough having been plying his trade in Spain predominantly as a winger, but Karanka would convert him into an attacking right-back.

His debut 2014/15 campaign at the Riverside would be a fairly modest one, as despite Boro reaching the Championship play-off final, Nsue would make just 27 league appearances, providing three assists and no goals.

However, 2015/16 would see him cement his legacy as a Middlesbrough cult hero, in what would be an unforgettable year on Teesside.

Boro won automatic promotion to the Premier League that season, and Nsue played a huge part in it. The somewhat maverick of a right-back played with an infectious amount of enthusiasm and energy, turning the grass down the right flank of the Riverside pitch to sand after every home game with his industrious work rate.

His 40 second tier appearances were paired with three goals and two assists, as he provided a real attacking outlet down the right channel.

Emilio Nsue joins Birmingham City at a turbulent time and endures a forgettable 12 months at St. Andrew's

However, as soon as the confetti had been cleared, Middlesbrough's summer planning for a Premier League campaign had begun.

Karanka evidently felt as though the defensive side of Nsue's game might not pass the top flight test, however, and so he made a number of additions at the right-back spot that summer which inevitably pushed him down the pecking order.

Having made just five appearances in all competitions during the first half of the 2016/17 season, Birmingham paid a reported £1m plus a further £1m in add-ons to acquire his services in the 2017 January transfer window.

Under the management of Gianfranco Zola at the time, the Blues were quickly and alarmingly beginning to fall down the Championship table upon his arrival, having gone from play-off contenders at the time of Garry Rowett's sacking in mid-December, to potential relegation candidates after an 11-game winless run to start Zola's short-lived reign.

As a result, St. Andrew's wasn't a particularly pleasant place to be at the time, and Nsue never truly looked at home there from the get-go.

After narrowly avoiding the drop to League One by two points in the 2016/17 season, Nsue had made 18 Championship appearances, scoring one goal and providing no assists.

Things wouldn't get much better in the first half of the 2017/18 season for either Birmingham or Nsue, in what was a campaign that saw Blues have three different managers: first Harry Redknapp, then Steve Cotterill and lastly Garry Monk, respectively.

Nsue would only play for the first two of those gaffers, as by January 2018 and just 12 months after joining the club, he made his exit to join Cypriot side APOEL Nicosia.

In total, he would make just 38 appearances for Birmingham, scoring just one goal and failing to register a single assist.

It's fair to say that the attacking, creative and much-loved defender that Middlesbrough had come to know didn't perform to his best with Birmingham, and as such, he remains forever doomed to be a West Midlands pub quiz answer.