1129 Aaron Connolly

Biography

Irish international striker Aaron Connolly joined the Tigers on a half season loan during the first week of the January 2023 transfer window and made his City debut a day later against Fulham in the FA Cup. He made his first significant impression with two finely taken goals in a late January 3-0 demolition of Queens Park Rangers but a toe injury sustained two weeks later ended his season early, before it had barely begun.

After a summer of toing and froing between Brighton and Hull, City manager Liam Rosenior got his man in early August 2023 and signed Connolly on an initial one year deal for a fee reputed to be around £1 million. Connolly started the season in fine form and scored important goals, including a fine late brace to snaffle a win away at Blackburn Rovers. In January 2024 Connolly was subject to viciuous assault from Norwich City goalkeeper Angus Gunn, who led with his knee and forearm as Connolly bore down on a through ball 25 yards from goal. Connolly was shaken and concussed – incredibly he had a free kick awarded against him – and had to leave the field. A player with occasional fragile confidence, Connolly was never the same again during the remainder of the season and left the Tigers when his contract experied in May 2024, days after his mentor Liam Rosenior was dismissed by the club.

Aaron Anthony Connolly was born in Oranmore, a town on the fringes of Galway on Ireland’s west coast. He played junior football for Maree/Oranmore FC and Mervue United before joining the Brighton & Hove Albion academy setup in 2016, where he was offered a two year scholarship and slotted straight into the Seagulls’ Under-18 team. By January 2017 he was elevated to the Under-21 side and scored twice on his debut at that level.

In the 2017/18 season he made his first team debut for Brighton in an August 2017 League Cup tie against Barnet, followed by two EFL Trophy appearances in August and November 2017, all before his 18th birthday. In the 2018/19 season he made four further senior appearances for Brighton, one in the League Cup and three in the EFL Trophy, before spending the latter half of the season on loan at League One title contenders Luton Town though injuries restricted him to just 2 appearances for the Hatters.

Aaron’s breakthrough came in the 2019/20 season, he made his Premier League debut off the bench in August 2019, four days after scoring his first senior goal in the League Cup against Bristol Rovers, and in his first start for the Seagulls in October 2019 he scored twice against Tottenham Hotspur. He added a third goal against Burnley in the last game of the season, ending the season with four goals in 27 senior appearances.

He remained in first team contention for much of the 2020/21 season but in the first half of the 2021/22 season he was used more sparingly and spent the second half of the season on loan at Championship side Middlesbrough where he scored two goals in 21 appearances. At the end of the 2021/22 season his tally for Brighton had reached eight goals in 52 appearances.

At the start of the 2022/23 season Connolly was loaned to Italian Serie B side Venezia but after his August 2022 debut against Genoa he made only five appearances before returning to England in January 2023 to join Hull City.

After leaving Hull City in the 2024 close season Connolly joined Championship side Sunderland in September 2024, on a similar one-year deal to the one he signed for Hull City a year earlier. Shortly after his move he revealed that he had struggled for years with alcohol addiction and was receiving treatment. He scored his first goal for Sunderland in November 2024 against Millwall.

Connolly played international football for Ireland at all levels – an April 2015 cap at Under-15 level was followed by 10 caps and seven goals at Under-17 level during the 2016/17 season including four appearances in the Under-17 European Championships played in Croatia during May 2017. Two caps for the Under-18s and five caps (plus 2 goals) for the Under-19s were followed by one goal in 9 appearances for the Under-21s between June 2019 and September 2022. In October 2019 Connolly was handed his senior debut for Ireland against Georgia and by September 2021 he had taken his senior tally to seven caps. After two years in the wilderness Connolly returned to the Ireland side in September 2021 and won an eighth cap when replacing ex-Tiger Will Keane in a Euros qualifier against France. Another two years passed before Connolly won his ninth cap against France in September 2023, his only international appearance as a Hull City player.

Details

Nationality: Ireland
Date/Place of Birth: 28 January 2000, Oranmore
Hull City First Game: 7 January 2023, Fulham H (FA Cup Third Round), 22 years, 344 days old
Hull City Final Game: 11 February 2023, Stoek City A (Championship), 23 years, 14 days old

Clubs

Brighton & Hove Albion (2016-2023), Luton Town (2019, loan), Middlesbrough (2022, loan), Venezia (2022-2023, loan), Hull City (2023, loan), Hull City (2023-2024), Sunderland (2024-current)

Hull City Record

Career: 36 apps, 10 goals

Aaron Connolly

Season	LGE App	LGE Gls	FAC App	FAC Gls	FLC App	FLC Gls	EUR App	EUR Gls	OTH App	OTH Gls
2022/23	4 (1)	2	0 (1)	0	–	–	–	–	–	–
2023/24	13 (15)	8	1 (0)	0	1 (0)	0	–	–	–	–