|
Socceroos goalkeeper Mat Ryan will head into Thursday's World Cup qualifier against Nepal on a high after claiming his second PFA men's player of the year prize. After helping Brighton to a 3-0 English Premier League victory over Tottenham on Saturday, Ryan received the honour within hours of arriving in Canberra on Monday. The peer-voted award was presented to the 27-year-old at a team dinner by former Socceroo Brett Holman and Ryan said it marked a big few days for him personally. "We had that good result on the weekend. It was nice everything came together for us on the day with Brighton," Ryan told AAP. "We've sort of been close with our performances, just the results have not represented how we'd performed in the games. "It all came together at the right time on Saturday and now coming into camp after the good start we had against Kuwait away, this is obviously a nice cherry on top to pick up at the start of camp." Ryan is just the second multiple winner of the award, ending the three-year reign of Brighton teammate Aaron Mooy. "He mentioned it one of the days last week and just having a laugh about it," Ryan said. "He's obviously been a deserving winner the last few seasons. It's nice that I can take it off his hands this time around." As well as Mooy, other nominees for this year's award were goalkeeper Danny Vukovic, ex-Wellington Phoenix striker Roy Krishna and Adelaide United great Isaias. Ryan made history in 2015 as the first player to claim both the men's player of the year award and the Harry Kewell Medal as Australia's best under-23 men's player. That honour this year went to Perth Glory winger Chris Ikonomidis, who turned 24 in May. Ikonomidis, who was part of Australia's Asian Cup squad, is the second Glory player to win the Harry Kewell Medal after Nikita Rukavytsya claimed the inaugural medal in 2009. Ryan and the rest of the Australian squad have now gathered in Canberra ahead of Thursday's clash with Group B minnows Nepal before facing Taiwan in Kaohsiung on October 15. PFA MEN'S PLAYER OF THE YEAR HONOUR ROLL 2009 - Tim Cahill 2010 - Mark Schwarzer 2011 - Matt McKay 2012 - Brett Holman 2013 - Robbie Kruse 2014 - Mile Jedinak 2015 - Mat Ryan 2016 - Aaron Mooy 2017 - Aaron Mooy 2018 - Aaron Mooy 2019 - Mat Ryan
|
