TALKING PRIVATE RYAN “Ryan is a player who does not get a lot of recognition outwith Pittodrie but Ryan is ok with that. He is quite unassuming and just goes about his job. People who know football fully appreciate the role he does for the team.” Derek McInnes, January 2015.

This is a football club that understands the value of humility, of simply getting on and doing the job without shouting our names and our achievements from the rooftops. It’s a trait of this part of Scotland, one that has stood Aberdeen FC in good stead in fair weather and foul.

If you wanted to find the modern day embodiment of that quiet, “taking care of business” approach, you could do a lot worse than look at Ryan Jack, the SPFL’s Player of the Month for December. So focused is the Dons midfielder on just doing his job and then getting back to his young family that while, like the rest of us, he’s not averse to a bit of praise, he never considers that he might actually be in line for some. Which is why the award took him completely by surprise.

“This is the first individual award I have won. I was delighted when the manager pulled me into the office to tell me the news. I was a bit shocked to be honest, as I never knew I was even in the running for it. It was a great feeling, being recognised for doing well and it was also very flattering, but I must give credit to my team mates as well. It is a team game and without the team doing so well it would be harder to pick up individual awards.

“So many of the players are playing well, I’m sure most of the team would have been up for winning it. We are all on top of our game at the minute. We all want to show that consistency as a team and we just want to keep going, keep the momentum going”.

Consistency has been the watchword for Ryan this season, because he hit the ground running from day one, into top form right from the Europa League qualifiers, setting standards which have not dropped since then.

“The main aim for me this season was to remain injury free. I did pick up a slight injury earlier in the season but thankfully I did not miss too many games. The more games I play, then I can get on a good run and be more consistent. That is my main aim, just to be playing every week and to try and play consistently well.

“The last couple of seasons, I have had a four week injury or a five week injury or a six week injury and it really does set you back. You have to go through all the rehab and then try and get up to match fitness and it then probably takes three or four games to get back to your top form. When you get a run of games as I am now, I am feeling as good as at any stage during my career and that helps the consistency in my performances.

“Credit must go to the manager, Tony Doc and Graham Kirk as well for the fitness side of it. They take the training and are giving us what we need during those sessions to go out and perform at peak fitness on a Saturday. We are taking that into games and it is helping us at the moment with the run we are on. We are taking the intensity of our training sessions into matches.

“Every training session is challenging but that is how you want it to be. You want to feel you have come in and had a tough day. Then you can go home and rest up knowing you have to come back in the next day and be at 100% to be able to go again.

“Everyone here believes in the training that we do. Over the festive period when we had a lot of games, we had confidence in our fitness because of the training we do. We knew we could go out and give our maximum effort and if we had a game three days later, we knew could go out and give our maximum again.

“We all recognise how important it is to take the good things we do on the training pitch into games. We go into every game wanting those three points, it does not matter who we are playing, it is the same three points.

“It makes the game so much easier when everyone is on from, everyone has the same mind-set and everyone is on the same wavelength. We rely on each other. We rely on the defenders to have a clean sheet and the defence rely on the forward thinking players to go and create and score goals.”

For the most part, particularly in the absence of Willo Flood, Ryan has had to curtail his attacking instincts and take on a more disciplined, defensive role this term, one he has thrived upon.

“Like everyone in the team I have strict instructions and duties when the team are defending. I am the one who drops a bit deeper and if a team is playing one off the front, something many teams do now, it is my responsibility to keep an eye on them. I also have to make sure all the boys in front of me keep working hard.

But every week, the manager tells me just to go out and play my own game and express myself. He tells me to get my full range of passing going. I feel this season I have played more consistently.

“I am enjoying the role but I would play anywhere, it is just good being part of this team. I think you need to have a bit of maturity about you to play deeper, because you do not want to be charging all over the place. For example if you lose the ball when you are meant to be sitting, then you can put the team in trouble very easily.

“I have to try and get the ball from the defence and try and get us up the pitch by passing it and not by booting it long. The manager wants us to play the game the right way and get the ball down and pass it. We have the players in the team who want to play football. The players don’t want to shell it long. We work hard on our passing game in training and we all want to keep improving the quality of our game.

“We all have our defensive duties. If you watch Adam and David, they will track the full-backs all the way back into our own half and they always put in a lot of work for the team. It is drilled into us that it is not just the keeper and the back four who want the clean sheets, it is the whole team. The same when we score a goal, it is the whole team who take the credit for it.

“I still like to get forward when I can. In training I like to link up with David and Adam and slip balls through to them. It is not always possible to do that in every game we play depending on the opponents, but it is part of the game I enjoy. If I do get forward, then Pete and Jonny know to slip me in so we have built up a good understanding over the past month or so.

“Playing with those two has been really enjoyable. I just get on the ball and let them do all the running! Seriously, I can get on the ball a lot and start off the attacks. I can feed into Pete and feed into Jonny so they can get turned and can drive and use their pace, which is what they are good at doing. Jonny deserves a lot of credit. He is usually a wide midfielder but he has come in and done excellently for us. Pete has also been in great form and got himself on the scoresheet.”

What is noticeable to those who take the time to look for it is the relentless professionalism that Derek McInnes has instilled into his team, on every level. Whether it be the way in which players behave over Christmas which has seen the Dons move up a gear at this time of year for the second season in a row or their strict adherence to the “one game at a time” mantra, Ryan and his colleagues are an increasingly impressive collective.

“I know the manager and all the players keep going on about one game at a time but it works and especially when you do have a lot of games in a short space in time. After a win we enjoy it after the game but by the Monday we all come in and it is forgotten about and we move onto the next game. It does not matter who we have played or who we are playing next it is the same approach and the same three points that are up for grabs this Saturday as were last Saturday. When you sit back and think about it, it is a very sensible approach.

“We have to be professional on the pitch and cannot get carried away saying we are going to do this or we are going to that. It is important the players recognise the fact that we are doing well and don’t get me wrong we enjoy being at the top of the league but no one is looking too far ahead. As I say we just take each game as it comes and then see where it takes us.

“It is the same with our good runs at this time of year. The manager has just drilled into us that the best teams always do well at this time of year and are always very professional over Christmas and New Year. They don’t get carried away with what their family and friends are doing and still make sure they are eating the right things and not eating too much Christmas dinner with the family. The manager has told us that he wants us to be as professional as we can at all times and all the boys have taken that on board.

“Some of the previous seasons, when we have not done so well, that has got me mentally prepared for when we are doing well. It is a different kind of pressure and you are expected to win, but it is what you want as a player, you want to be going into every game expecting to do well and to get a result. It’s better than the alternative!

“I’ve played 160 games now, but before every game you still have that nervous tension because you want to do well. There is three points at stake and you want to do the best you can for the team and the fans and your family, so you do still get nerves. There would be something wrong if you didn’t get that, but as soon as you go out onto the pitch and the whistle goes and you get hold of the ball, all the nerves are forgotten about and you relax and settle into the game.

“I know very well that I am still learning the game. I have still got a lot to learn! I know that myself and I need to keep trying to improve to be the best possible player I can.

“On a personal level, in terms of my footballing development, I am getting there, but there is still a lot for me to learn. I don’t think you ever stop learning. There are always little things in training that the manager and Doc will tell me, tips on what they want me to do, what they want me to try. There is still plenty of room to improve my all round game”.

If things at work are all about consistency, away from Pittodrie, life has changed dramatically for Ryan after he recently became a father.

“It has changed my life, I am not going to lie. Getting up in the middle of the night and then coming into training tired is a new experience! It is the best feeling I have ever had, it has been great. It does put football into perspective a bit. I will go home and no matter whether I have a good session or a bad session or a good game or a bad game, I need to put that away and go home and get back to changing nappies and feeding a baby who is relying on me! It has opened my eyes and also matured me a lot.

“At home I do watch a lot of our games to look them over and to see if there is anything I can improve on and to see what I can do better. I will watch Champions League games as well. It is the top level with all the best players in the world so it is good to watch and learn things and feel inspired. Although with the baby, I might be watching less games from now on!”

As long as he keeps playing games, we won’t mind at all.

As long as he keeps playing games, we won’t mind at all.