In the noisy, bubbling minutes after Sunderland briefly sent themselves top of the Championship table last Saturday with a 1-0 win over Middlesbrough at the Stadium of Light, the club’s softly spoken French head coach, Regis Le Bris, reacted to a question about the 17-year-old goalscorer.
The player in question, Chris Rigg, had just shown guile, technique and composure to back-heel the ball in from a narrowing angle, a goal of uncommon quality from a teenager in front of 43,000.
“I don’t think the age is a problem,” Le Bris said when asked about Rigg’s age-talent ratio. “You can have a high level of maturity at 17 and a low level of maturity at 30. It depends on the personality.”
Le Bris’s quiet delivery cut through the noise. He was pointing out something obvious, but something requiring restating now and again. It was a moment to do so.
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Watching and listening many miles away, Aaron Connolly must have observed Rigg’s goal, heard what Le Bris said and looked in the mirror. Connolly was once that 17-year-old. Today, at 24, he is bang in the middle of Le Bris’s age-range comment.
And then, 48 hours later, Connolly was face-to-face with Le Bris discussing joining this young squad epitomised by Rigg.
Connolly arrived on Wearside with no kit, but with a lot of baggage. It is five years since he scored twice against Tottenham on his first Premier League start for Brighton. One week later came his senior Irish international debut. Connolly’s chunky aggression and 20-yard zip — plus his skill — provoked comparisons with Wayne Rooney. Irish football hoped it had found a successor to Robbie Keane. The only way was up.
Or so it seemed.
Connolly had made his Brighton debut at 17 in the League Cup, and now 19, was playing Premier League and international football. He was in and out of the Brighton team that 2019-20 season, but ended it by scoring the winner at Burnley on the last afternoon. A new four-year contract followed. Connolly was 20 and the future. In Graham Potter, he looked to have an ideal coach and mentor.
But that diagonal trajectory to the top does not just happen by itself. Connolly continued to be an important piece of Brighton the next season, but the team and squad were developing at a faster pace than the young lad from Galway, who had begun to notice distractions. Pascal Gross, Yves Bissouma and Alexis Mac Allister were now in midfield. Leandro Trossard and Neal Maupay were up front, and ahead of Connolly.
Season 2021-22 began with him still part of Brighton’s first team and in mid-December, Connolly started the home game against Wolves in the league. It does not suggest someone on the periphery.
Yet that turned out to be his last appearance for Brighton. One month on, Connolly was instead starting for Middlesbrough in the Championship. A fortnight later he turned 22.
At Boro Connolly did not excite the crowd with his daring on the pitch but with tales of it. He stayed half a season, returned to Brighton and was sent on loan again, this time to Venezia in Italy. He could sense a slipping away and spoke of being in the wrong company for a professional sportsman. Italy could be a turning point, he hoped.
But Italy was no new direction. A year-long loan became six months of stasis and next, he was at Hull City. He signed for Liam Rosenior, who was on the same teamsheet when Connolly made his Brighton debut in 2017.
But the zippy 17-year-old was now approaching 23 and was listed as weighing over 12st in the Football Yearbook. Nevertheless, Connolly did enough to convince Rosenior to make the situation relatively permanent and in the summer of 2023 Connolly signed a one-year deal. When he scored, such as the two from the bench to win at Blackburn, fans and commentators would say: “There’s still a player there, if ...”
Connolly played 30 times for Hull last season and went on for Will Keane as a substitute during an international in France last September. The off-pitch murmurs continued, though.
Then this January he suffered an unfortunate concussion against Norwich. There were just four substitute appearances totalling 65 minutes after that. Connolly looked bulky. Hull was over.
So there he was this summer, a striker without a goal in 2024, a free agent 24-year-old whose maturity was in question. It is why a new season opened with Connolly club-less.
As July became August became September, there was no new dawn. Everyone knew the talent contained within but Connolly’s reputation blurred opinion.
What none of us knew was that he had indeed looked in the mirror.
It was well before last Saturday and, according to those inside Sunderland, what he saw has sparked a personal reassessment of who Aaron Connolly is and wants to be.
This is the young man who on Monday pitched up at Sunderland’s training ground and spoke to Le Bris and sporting director Kristjaan Speakman. On Tuesday Sunderland announced Connolly had agreed a deal until the end of the season. On Wednesday the club released pictures of Connolly in training. He does have kit on, but even so it is apparent Connolly has lost bulk.
“Aaron needs an opportunity to re-establish himself and to reset the perception of him as a professional athlete,” Speakman said.
“It wasn’t long ago that he was scoring goals in the Premier League and playing for his national team, but he has suffered some setbacks. We all handle challenges differently and when it comes to responding, sometimes we don’t get it right immediately.”
Connolly responded by saying: “I’m ready to move forward with my career after facing some challenges in recent times.”
Some challenges will sound vague to some fans, but if the physical change is illustrative of a mentality change, then Connolly, at 24, may have registered with Le Bris’s thoughts on maturity.
By Thursday Le Bris was giving that impression. His is a new name in England, but Le Bris is 48 and has been around youth football for many years. Pertinently, he also knows what it is like to be a coveted 17-year-old player — Le Bris played centre half for France in that age group.
He can recall the disorientating effects — “because it’s not usual, it’s a strange experience for people” — and in a specific reference he said Connolly “maybe got carried away, if that is the right term, before”.
Gentle in tone, Le Bris mentioned “a very interesting pathway” and stressed the difference between being a boy and being a man: “The beginning of the pathway is just the beginning of the pathway. It’s not senior football. It’s so different.”
Sunderland have their own emerging talent programme, to borrow a phrase, with Rigg joined by another teenager, Jobe Bellingham, in midfield. Last Saturday the team’s average age was 23. Connolly will therefore be something of a senior figure. Le Bris expects he will be available after the international break.
Of their hour-long conversation on Monday, Le Bris said Connolly had talked about being that 17-year-old: “Yeah, he was very clear. They were not bad subjects, everything was on the table. It was clear to me that he has learned from these experiences. If you want to avoid a subject ... but he talked about every subject. It was interesting.”
Did Connolly sound like someone who has matured?
“I think so, but we need to experience it. We’ll see. At the minute I think that’s the case, but the truth lies in his activity and our experience. We’ll see in the next weeks and months.”
Physically, does Connolly look different?
“Yeah, absolutely. It was one of our key points. He looked heavy and now he’s fit, really fit.”
Is this le salon de la derniere chance?
“I don’t know, we’ll see.”
Le Bris said Sunderland had reviewed lots of free agents and found reasons in their profile to say “No”. So Connolly has made promising first impressions — on the page and in person.
Le Bris departed with a smile. It’s Watford away on Saturday. Sunderland have won five of their first six matches and the place is buoyant. It is an environment in which Connolly could prosper.
But progress is not a given. In the same room, by chance 17 years ago, Roy Keane sat in Le Bris’s chair and talked about a young Irish striker whom he felt was dancing at a crossroads, or the Glass Spider as the last chance saloon in Sunderland was known then.
Anthony Stokes, Keane said, “could be a top, top player in four or five years; or he could be playing non-League. He’ll go one way or the other.”
Stokes was 19 and we know that story. Connolly is 24 and the Glass Spider is no more. If he’s changed, as Sunderland think, good luck to him.
