Paul Fennessy

FOR AARON Connolly, 2023 has been a good year.

The Ireland international was still a Brighton player last January. He had returned early from a loan spell at Venezia that yielded five appearances and zero goals in Serie B.

The out-of-favour man was surplus to requirements at the Seagulls, the team the talented striker joined as a 16-year-old and for whom he made a first-team debut at 17.

Not for the first time in his career, Connolly was facing an uncertain future.

Liam Rosenior, the Hull coach, whom he had played with and worked under at Brighton, came calling.

Connolly joined the Tigers on 6 January and made an encouraging start. On his third appearance and second start, Connolly scored a brace in his side’s 3-0 win over QPR.

They were his first goals at senior level for 10 months and, suddenly, the Galwegian had a sense of momentum.

Yet, two games later, Connolly picked up a season-ending injury.

In five Championship games, though, Connolly had done enough to convince Rosenior of his worth.

Last August, he joined Hull permanently on a one-year deal for an undisclosed fee.

The move swiftly paid dividends. Connolly was top of the Championship goalscoring charts after five goals in his first eight appearances.

“To be honest, when I’ve been playing and when I’ve not had the little knocks and injuries, it’s been the most enjoyable season I’ve had for a very, very long time in football,” he tells The 42.

“I’d like to think people can maybe see that with when I have played and the performances and it’s the most goals I’ve got in one year [at senior level], it’s not loads, but the games I’ve played, obviously coming to Hull and signing permanently as well. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to be, a better manager to play under and a better group of players to be seeing out the year with.”

Connolly has spoken before about how during the darker times in his career, the love for football had “faded”. However, now the 23-year-old feels he has regained a passion for playing.

“It’s hard not to love it when you’re here [at Hull],” he says. “You enjoy the surroundings that you’re in every day.

“And I enjoy coming in every day, enjoy seeing the lads, enjoy the training sessions. And obviously, we’re [challenging for the playoffs] as well. There’s nothing more enjoyable than playing for something every single week. So it’s been the most enjoyable year I’ve had probably for a good four or five years in football. And I’ve found a love for it [again].”

The previous six-month spell in Italy, Connolly says, had a big impact, even though it was not a prolific period.

“I took a lot from it, to be fair. It changed the way I looked at football — it was such a different environment and a different place to work. And I was living there by myself.

“So I finally just got stuck into the more professional side of the game. And obviously, that had been questioned a lot of times in my career previously and I kind of just got my head down and worked hard and appreciated what I was meant to be: a proper footballer, not just someone who tries to turn up on a Saturday and hope it clicks on the pitch.

“It’s a Monday, Tuesday and through the week kind of thing where you have to be on it every day. And thankfully, I took that into Hull.”

He continues: “I’m just enjoying my football, I love being out on the pitch. Maybe at times before, I was a bit nervous about coming on the pitch or I wasn’t really enjoying the football as much and that’s come back.”

And was there a worry going into Hull that it might be his last chance of playing at that level if the move didn’t work out?

“I wasn’t even thinking that,” he replies. “It was more the excitement of coming to work under the manager outweighed the nerves or anything like that.”

Connolly established himself as one of the hot prospects in English football at Brighton U23s when Rosenior was working there as a coach. That foundation paved the way for a memorable full Premier League debut in which he scored a brace in a 3-0 win over Tottenham.

Rosenior plays to Connolly’s strengths. During the games he has started this season, the Irish striker has usually operated as the most advanced attacker in a 4-2-3-1 formation in a similar role he enjoyed during the better parts of his Brighton days.

“I’ve known [Liam Rosenior] for years and I know that he trusts me. I just know the way he plays and the way he wants to set up the team just suits me down to the ground. It’s the same way we set up with Brighton U23s and he was a massive part of why we were so successful and why that team has so many players who are playing at first-team level [now].

“Ben White and Rob Sanchez [who have since joined Arsenal and Chelsea respectively] were on that team as well. So the way we set up or the way we played, a lot of players can look back at that time with very fond memories.”

Injuries, Connolly adds, have “probably been the story of my career for quite a long time”.

Although he describes last year’s season-ending setback as a “freak injury” — it was a broken bone in his foot as opposed to any recurring problem.

“I just couldn’t get right after that again for the rest of the season. But that’s another thing that I learned in Italy, I needed to look after [myself] and touch wood, I haven’t had muscle injuries and stuff like that since I’ve really tried to look after myself.

“But it’s not ideal, is it? You score two, you’re starting to enjoy your football, you’re hoping for more goals and I was on loan from Brighton at the time, thinking: ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen now.’”

Hull City manager Liam Rosenior has been a big influence throughout Connolly's career. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Asked about his spectacular flurry of goals at the start of this season, Connolly says: “I definitely wouldn’t say it was coming easy to me but you know when you have that good feeling around the building and the football club and when I go on the pitch I’m not nervous, I’m not worried about the way it’s going to go, I just go out on the pitch and try to enjoy myself.

“The gaffer gives me that freedom all the time to just do what I can. With the trust he gives me, it’s quite easy to just go on the pitch and not worry about anything apart from trying to help the team and from the chances that I scored, I was just so calm in front of goal.

“Maybe over the years, I’ve rushed chances and as you’ve seen a few years ago, I was missing open goals or one-v-ones and just had no confidence going through on goal.
But when I’m playing for the gaffer, and I know how much he trusts me and the freedom he gives me — if I go on the pitch and I get a chance, I’d like to think that nine times out of 10, I’ll be able to put it away.”

So what has changed? How has Connolly turned himself into a more composed finisher in a relatively short space of time?

“I’ve just grown up a little bit, I think. I know there are loads of players who burst onto the scene young and they go on to have big Premier League careers.

“But for me, I got a bit carried away with the whole situation and I wasn’t used to that kind of spotlight on me.

“I’d gone from playing U23s in front of maybe 150 people max and if you have an average game, it doesn’t get spoken about. But I went from that to my first start, scoring two goals and then kind of put too much pressure on myself that I needed to do that every single week.

“And I stopped enjoying the other side of the game. And I was just putting so much pressure on myself. And then I kind of got a bit carried away, away from the pitch. And it was hard to switch back to that mentality of: ‘I need to be professional, I need to do everything right.’ And I kind of just lost my way a little bit. But that was when I was 18-19. I’m 24 next month and time flies.

“People used to tell me that when I was 15-16 when I first got to Brighton, they said: ‘The time will fly by.’ I was there for eight years and I never believed it at the time. I remember when I was 16, Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy told me how quickly the time would go. And I never believed that, I thought I’d be 16, 17 or 18 and always considered the young boy coming up. I’ve had to mature. And I feel that’s probably the main thing [behind my improvement] at the minute.”

Ireland's Aaron Connolly and Dayot Upamecano of France competing during the Euro 2024 qualifier last September. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO

Connolly remains a player of significant potential, though you get the sense there is still more to come.

He has made 21 appearances so far this season, but only four of those games saw him complete 90 minutes.

In September, after Connolly scored his sixth goal in nine Championship matches, Rosenior said: “Aaron’s capable of anything he wants in his career if he stays on track.

“He’s not 100% fit, which is scary.

“He’s a leader in the dressing room. He’s a massive influence and has taken [fellow striker] Liam Delap under his wing.

“Some of his runs and some of his movements are top-level. He knows when he needs a rocket but he knows I love him as I’ve known him since he was 15.”

I read the manager’s quotes back to Connolly and he accepts their sentiments.

“I’ve had this conversation with the gaffer many times where we both agree that I’m not 100%, and I probably won’t be for another month or two. I had an injury. And then I came in a few days before the season started, I had no proper preseason. It was kind of a case of just building up training fitness before match fitness.

“I scored a few goals at the start of the season and then I started playing a few more games from the start. And I felt in a good place. But we both knew there would be a time when I’d hit a wall of lacking match sharpness where I could do a Saturday, Tuesday, back-to-back for the rest of the season. So obviously, as a player, you want to play every game. But sometimes you’ve got to be realistic as well. I hadn’t trained really, until two days before we went to Norwich for the first game of the season.

“So maybe a few years ago, I wouldn’t have appreciated that. And I would have thought: ‘No, I’m fit, I can play.’ But now that I’ve started to learn more about my body and kind of grow up in a football sense, I’ve started to appreciate that maybe sometimes, managers are more right than the player.”

Another memorable moment in 2023 for Connolly was when he came off the bench for Ireland during their Euro 2024 qualifier to win his ninth cap against France in Parc des Princes.

The 78th-minute arrival — almost two years to the day from Connolly’s last senior appearance for his country — was another reward for his rejuvenation at club level.

Of course, there has been significant change since then. Connolly was sorry to see Stephen Kenny, the manager he won the majority of his caps under, depart the role.

The young striker adds that he has no preference over who the new coach should be, though ideally, it will be someone who allows Connolly to build on his recent progress by selecting him.

“My family are very, very proud Irish people. It’s my dad’s biggest thing. His screensaver on the phone is me playing for Ireland against Serbia a few years back. He loves watching me play for Ireland.

“So of course I love every time I play with Ireland and maybe in the last few years, I haven’t been involved as much as I would have liked. But I understand that as well.

“I wasn’t at a place mentally and physically to be able to go and perform for my country, which is one of the biggest honours ever.

“So I’m looking forward to playing a few more games for Ireland — hopefully, I can get back in and cement a place in the team for years to come.”