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Ronwen Williams’ first season at Mamelodi Sundowns has been so impressive that fellow players, coaches and commentators have tipped him to win the PSL Player of the Season award. But, according to his former coach, Gavin Hunt, the goalkeeper has no business winning the league’s top award.
Instead, Hunt is convinced Williams' team-mate midfielder Teboho Mokoena is more deserving.
“I don’t think a goalkeeper should win player of the year. No chance. That means your team has been struggling. You have been defending,” the SuperSport United coach said on Tuesday as Matsatsantsa prepared for their penultimate game of the DStv Premiership campaign.
SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt, whose team has a chance to finish as the second best team in the #DStvPrem, says his season would have been better had they signed one or two or three players.
— Tiisetso Malepa (@TiisetsoMalepa) May 9, 2023
United didn't spend a single cent on new players this season.@City_Press pic.twitter.com/rwhUSOk6e4
United will host Kaizer Chiefs at Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg on Saturday afternoon.
“I think he (Williams) has had a magnificent season, but I just don’t think a goalkeeper should win that award. But I think he has been brilliant.
“But that’s not a good sign is it… for a goalkeeper to win player of the year in a team that they (Sundowns) have got.
“(Teboho) Mokoena has been player of the year for me,” Hunt said.
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Chiefs' iconic goalkeeper, Itumeleng Khune, and Bafana Bafana legend Andre Arendse are the only goalkeepers to have won this top award in the 27 years of the PSL era.
Khune did it for Chiefs as Amakhosi romped to a league and cup double during the 2012/13 campaign. Arendse won it after helping Santos win the league title in the 2001/02 season.
The 31-year-old Williams, who was born in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, has been synonymous with keeping clean sheets and pulling off spectacular saves that have won matches for Sundowns.
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In fact, Williams has managed a staggering 18 clean sheets and conceded just 10 goals.
His best run of clean sheets was when he went 671 minutes without conceding, between September last year and January, over a spell of seven matches.
Largely because of his reliability and stability in between goals, Sundowns are on the brink of bettering the team’s best defensive record since the 2020/21 season, when the Brazilians let in 14 goals in the entire league campaign.
It is the best record over the past six seasons when Sundowns have won the league title in succession.
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Williams has justified his big money move from SuperSport United to Sundowns with impressive displays.
His transfer was an “eight-figure” transaction, his agent Rob Moore told City Press in July.
Two months ago, Williams’ former goalkeeper coach, Arendse, said the keeper has done more than enough to win the Premiership goalkeeper of the season award, if not player of the season.
But this week, Hunt, who works with Arendse at SuperSport, reckons Mokoena has done much more.
“If your goalkeeper is winning player of the tournament…, I just don’t see it.
“Goalkeepers win you games but when you are so dominant and he is winning player of the year then I don’t know. But that’s a debate is it not?”
