Maty Ryan signs two year deal with Real Sociedad
Maty Ryan has complete a permanent move away from Brighton & Hove Albion, signing a two-year deal with La Liga side Real Sociedad.
The terms of the deal are being labelled as undisclosed. Reports in Spain however have said that Sociedad are paying no upfront fee for the goalkeeper with future payments linked into performance related clauses, the same as Handsome Davy Propper’s move back to PSV Eindhoven.
Ryan will play Europa League football with his new club, who finished fifth in La Liga last season. Bizarrely, there have been a lot of Brighton fans mocking Ryan for ‘only’ moving to Sociedad, as if swapping a team who were 16th in the Premier League for a top five Spanish club competing in Europe is some sort of massive backwards step.
That acrimony towards Ryan stems from the way in which his Albion career ended. After a poor start to the 2020-21 season, Graham Potter unceremoniously demoted Ryan from first choice to fourth behind Robert Sanchez, Jason Steele and Christian Walton overnight.
The Brighton boss then told Ryan to find a new club in January. He duly did that, securing a dream move to Arsenal whom he had supported as a boy growing up in Australia.
Shortly after his temporary switch to the Emirates, Ryan gave an interview in which he said he always hoped Brighton would be a stepping stone to a bigger club – a not entirely unreasonable thing to say given that is how virtually every player in the current Albion squad views Brighton.
This though caused some Seagulls supporters to lose their minds and Ryan suddenly found himself being likened to Mark Walton or Nicky Rust as the worst goalkeeper to ever pull on a set of gloves for the Albion. Plainly, that was complete nonsense.
Ryan was excellent during his first two-and-a-half season at the Amex. Signed from Valencia for a then-club record £5 million in the summer of 2017, he kept Tim Krul out of Chris Hughton’s starting XI in his first year at Brighton.
That 2017-18 campaign saw Ryan in the running for Player of the Season. He made a number of inspired saves with his 10 clean sheets in a team often set out to win 1-0 going a long way towards helping secure Premier League survival.
In 2018-19, he became the first (and only) ever Brighton player to win a PFA Premier League Player of the Month award after recording three shutouts in three 1-0 victories during October.
Towards the end of the 2019-20 season his form began to dip, but he still managed to pull off one of the greatest saves any Brighton goalkeeper has ever made in July’s 1-1 draw at Southampton.
Jannik Vestergaard’s 25 yard effort looked destined for the top corner until Ryan appeared from nowhere, flying across his goal to get the feintest of fingertips to it. And yet people mocked him for having t-rex arms…
Interestingly, that is exactly the same charge levelled by most of the country at Jordan Pickford back in the winter. Pickford’s turnaround to be arguably England’s best player at Euro 2020 (in 2021) shows that all goalkeepers suffer rough patches.
There is no reason to think that Ryan will not rediscover his best form again – and he did well in his rare opportunities at Arsenal – in which case Sociedad have got themselves a shrewd acquisition for no transfer fee.
Having said that, even Ryan’s most ardent backers would be hard pushed to argue that Potter did not make the right decision in replacing Ryan with Sanchez this season.
It is just a shame how sour things have turned between club, player and manager. Ryan should be departing for Sociedad with universal gratitude for the role he played in keeping Brighton in the Premier League. Not with supporters posting celebratory GIFs on the internet.
Before December, Ryan was clearly passionate about representing the Albion. His sprints 90 yards down the pitch to celebrate goals become one of the most enjoyable sights at the Amex in those first few Premier League and he was always the last player off the pitch at the end after taking the time to chat to fans.
Ryan’s departure continues Brighton’s attempts to streamline their squad by getting high earners who Potter does not rate off the wage bill. Bernardo and Propper have already departed for little to no transfer fee and Alireza Jahanbakhsh is rumoured to be close to securing a move to Feyenord.
The likes of Jurgen Locadia and Shane Duffy could follow suit before the end of the transfer window, meaning that virtually all of Hughton’s most trusted lieutenants – bar Lewis Dunk and Solly March – will have left the club.
Of those, Ryan was one of the most important. Without him, Brighton’s Premier League journey would have already ended. He deserves everyone’s respect for that.
