Maty Ryan reveals the story behind his fall from grace at Brighton

The weird end to the Brighton & Hove Albion career of Maty Ryan has taken another strange turn with comments made by Arsenal’s new number two goalkeeper in an interview with Australian broadcaster Optus Sport.

Talking to reporter Michelle Escobar, Ryan said that he felt that he had a lack of support from the Albion before going onto describe his move to the Emirates Stadium as a massive step up. He also revealed that he viewed Brighton as a stepping stone to a bigger club.

Ryan had been the Seagulls’ number one for three-and-a-half-years until his form fell away alarmingly in the opening months of the 2020-21 season.

You would be hard pushed to find a Brighton supporter who did not think he needed some time out of the team, but the way in which Graham Potter handled the situation seemed particularly brutal.

Robert Sanchez replaced Ryan for the 0-0 draw at Fulham in December. Immediately after the game, Potter confirmed that Sanchez was now his number one and Jason Steele number two, effectively relegating Ryan from first choice to third overnight.

When Christian Walton returned from injury, Maty Ryan moved even further down the Brighton pecking order to fourth. Think what you like about Ryan – Potter must be the only person on the planet who views Steele as a better goalkeeper.

A few days after the stalemate at Craven Cottage, news leaked out of the Amex that Ryan had been told to find another club. Treating a player who had played such an important part in establishing Brighton as a Premier League club and who had always appeared the model professional did not sit well with a lot of people.

In the Optus Sport interview, Ryan reveals that Potter actually said he was free to go before Sanchez had kept his clean sheet against Fulham.

“We were training in the evening the day before the Fulham game and he (Potter) called me into his office. I sort of knew as I was summoned that I wasn’t going to be playing as it was a similar pattern to the first game (against Spurs) when I was dropped.”

“What I didn’t expect was to be told I could leave if I got a good offer in January. He said he was going to give Sanchez an extended run in the team, he liked the second goalkeeper Jason Steele in the role he does, so he basically said I was going to be out of the squad completely.”

“He started thanking me for my time at the club, saying you have been a great servant for the club, can’t say a bad word about you, you’ve been professional and all this and I was sort of stunned by it.”

“I had to stop him and clarify it. Gaffer, I understand you are telling me I am not playing for these next couple of weeks but can I still fight for my position at the club or are you showing me the door and telling me I can leave?”

“He said knowing you and how you are as a person and a footballer with a willingness to be playing and contributing to a team, I suggest if you get a good offer in January that you take it.”

“I was a bit shocked to hear that at the time and how it all unfolded. It contradicted a couple of the things he had said to me previously as well after dropping me the first time.”

Ryan had initially been dropped for the 2-1 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur at the start of November. Neal Maupay was also jettisoned from the squad for the trip to Spurs after rumours of an altercation with a teammate in the aftermath of the previous week’s 1-1 home draw with lowly West Bromwich Albion.

With Ryan also missing, many assumed that the goalkeeper must have been the other party involved. Ryan does not touch on any such incident, but he did talk about feeling a lack of support from the club.

“I am not the first player to be in the situation where you are not wanted or not perceived as being the best man for the job. There are a number of reasons that can happen, whether it is a performance thing, an opinion of a manager, or you never really know if there is a political or business thing behind decisions.”

“As players, sometimes it is hard to get the real reason as to why and you can go stir crazy in your head trying to figure it out. This season at Brighton, the longer it was going on, there were more and more signs happening that meant I didn’t feel the full support of the club”

“Anyone in any industry in the world, it is very hard to thrive within an industry, a company or a business when you are not feeling the support and unfortunately for me, that is how I was feeling during this whole season.”

Ryan admitted that his form had been poor. “I am not trying to make an excuse. I wasn’t able to get the job done out on the pitch. The thing about myself though is I can comfortably look myself in the mirror, realise that I gave everything to try and perform at my full potential but for whatever reason it just wasn’t panning out that. Like I said, there could have been a few external factors.”

“When I was first dropped for that Tottenham game, that was the moment when I had a lot of anger and frustration as to why I had been dropped. From that moment, it obviously showed that there was something not quite right and the fact that he (Potter) had made that decision showed that he was capable of doing it more often.”

Ryan clearly feels that his below-par run of performances were influenced by something going on behind the scenes. What that something may be we will probably never know, but it is fairly obvious that the whole experience has bruised him. Some might even say it has left him bitter about his time as Brighton.

The part of the interview which seems to have got supporters’ backs up the most is where Maty Ryan talks about his career progressing and life after Brighton.

Whilst everyone knew that Ryan would be leaving in January if the right offer came along, nobody could predict that it would be via a dream move to Arsenal, the club he supported as a boy.

“When I first arrived at Brighton, I had in my mind that I wanted to play a couple of seasons at Brighton, try and do well and hopefully be bought by a bigger club and keep progressing in my career.”

“Perhaps it didn’t quite work out in the way of being bought for a fee as a number one but one way or another, I have ended up in a massive step up from Brighton to a level of football playing at the pinnacle of the game now.”

“I’m trying to enjoy the journey and take advantage of all that is in front of me at the moment with being part of a massive global brand that is Arsenal.”

Quite why so many people are angry at Ryan saying he wanted to play well for Brighton to get a move to a bigger club is baffling. That is what all players do and underpins the entire transfer system.

An individual with no affinity to Brighton who was born in Australia like Maty Ryan, or the Ivory Coast like Yves Bissouma (bonus points if you knew he is not from Mali), or Belgium like Leandro Trossard, is not coming to the Albion with the aim of spending the rest of their life at the Amex. They are here for their careers and to progress to a bigger club with more money and the chance to win trophies.

Ryan has got that move to a bigger club. He has swapped a ‘brand’ who have won two League One and two League Two titles in 120 years for a ‘brand’ who have been champions of England 13 times and lifted the FA Cup on a record 14 occasions. Arsenal may be struggling this season, but they are still a giant of world football.

The most interesting aspect of the entire interview is that Maty Ryan talks as though he has left Brighton permanently. He is only on loan at the Emirates until the end of the season and still has 18 months left on his Albion contract.

To have spoken so openly about his departure and been critical of the club is a bold move given Ryan could find himself back at the Amex in the summer should Arsenal not want to sign him permanently and no other suitor wants to take him on.

That is the situation Florin Andone has found himself in. The Romanian striker gave a similar burning bridges interview when he moved to Galatasaray on loan last season, going so far as to say he did not want to play for Brighton again.

Injuries wrecked Andone’s time in Turkey and that meant he had to return to the Albion with his tail between his legs. Some Brighton fans now view Andone as the answer to a lack of clinicalness in front of goal and are yearning for him to be given a first team opportunity once he is fully fit, seemingly forgetting that he missed as many games through suspension (six) in his first year at the club as he scored goals.

It is sad that Ryan’s Brighton career has ended in such acrimony. At his best throughout the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, he was one of the most dependable number ones in the Premier League whose performances did more than most to keep Brighton in the top flight.

He appeared to care deeply about the club and its fans too. The sight of him sprinting the length of the pitch to join in with goal celebrations or going around the Amex after matches to hand out his old training gear to supporters showed a side to his personality you rarely see in 21st century Premier League footballers.

For some Brighton supporters, Ryan’s interview will have undone a lot of the popularity and good will he had built up during his three-and-a-half-years with the Albion. That is understandable.

Neither side has come out of this breakup looking particularly good; the ruthlessness with which Potter told Ryan to find another club has now been matched by out-of-character unprofessionalism from Ryan in airing some dirty laundry in public.

At the end of the day though, the whole Ryan Saga was worked out well for all parties. Sanchez has been outstanding since coming into the side and Brighton look far more solid defensively as five clean sheets in the last six games is testament to. The Albion also shifted a significant pay packet off their wage bill for six months.

Ryan meanwhile secured his dream move to sit on the bench at Arsenal, a definite step up from remaining at a club where the manager views Steele as a better goalkeeping option.

Watch the full interview with Maty Ryan discussing his Brighton departure here: