I'm disappointed he's got another chance this big, all season in L2 is what he deserves and might have been good for him
Its really not that complicated!!!
Fair play to him must have impressed in training great to see him recovering from that bad head injury. Not that i know anything about it but sunderland seem light in the central attacking area with no obvious outstanding player so hopefully he can get minutes and if he does he will get goals like at hull I thinkOriginally Posted by pineapple stu
Great signing for Sunderland, next season of Sunderland till I die should be very interesting, as footballer though, not too sure.
The owner of the Glass Spider will be happy.
Officially confirmed now, signed until the end of the season.
Eight months to save his career? Or maybe someone else will give him another go next season if this one doesn't work out.
Will be interesting to see what kind of shape he's in. The PFA were running training sessions all summer to help keep out of contract players fit, but I didn't see any mention of Aaron ever showing up to them.
Interesting comments from Sunderland - looks like they're going into this with their eyes open anyway.
“Aaron needs an opportunity to re-establish himself and to reset the perception of him as a professional athlete. 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. At Sunderland, he’ll have the environment and support to perform and an opportunity to showcase his ability. It’s an important 17-game period following the next international break and we believe Aaron can add value to our squad during that period. We look forward to helping him settle and supporting him in that process.”
Ive never seen a statement like that from a club signing a player, pretty extraordinary to call him out like that, even if its completely justifiable.
Bottom line is, the best version of Aaron that we seen all too briefly is a Premiership quality striker. Between fitness and attitude Im not sure hes even a L2 striker at the moment so its a huge few months for him to see does he actually care enough to have a good career.... or will he be sitting on a bar stool in 30 years pointing to his tattoo and talking about how he scored a couple of Premiership goals back in the day.
Its really not that complicated!!!
On the bench tonight at home against Leeds
Ross Barkley played for Villa in a victory against Bayern Munich in the Champions League the other night, so it's not impossible. He needs to decide for himself if he wants to be remembered as the Irish version of that, or the Irish Ravel Morrison. People can change and he has more time on his side than Barkley. Sunderland is a potentially a great club and he could be back playing the the premier league this time next year if he gets his head down.
Bring Back Belfast Celtic F.C.
Hopefully someone can embed this. Connolly with a good interview about him having addiction issues. Delighted hes acknowledging it now while he still has time to fix his career and life
Last edited by tetsujin1979; 10/10/2024 at 7:29 PM. Reason: Embedded video
Its really not that complicated!!!
Well, now we know why he wasn't at those PFA training camps - he was on the PFA addiction rehab course instead.
It's well worth watching the full interview. It's clear he has a major alcohol problem, sounds like it runs in his family. Which means he'll need to give it up completely to have any chance of making it back to where he was.
I'll give him credit for facing up to this at 24. Plenty of footballers do it at 34 when it's too late, but it's rare to see a 24 year old give an interview like that. A fully fit, tee-total Connolly could still be a huge asset to Sunderland and Ireland. It was noticeable that he had a completely different body shape in his Sunderland signing photos than he had playing for Hull last year - in a good way. The beer belly was gone.
But at the same time you never cure alcoholism, so there's always going to be the risk or a relapse. I hope it all works out for him.
It’s a very good interview and it’s good that he realises the issues at hand and he’s owning up things and seeing what a lot of people have seen. And going to the treatment centre is clearly a good thing. Plenty of people overcome things like this and I hope he can.
He gave a good interview when he signed for Venezia and everyone was impressed by it and he talked about not working right and knuckling down yet he continued to step backwards rather than forwards.
I think I mentioned on here that after the Israel u21 away game one of the players showed me their phone and the WhatsApp group and he ended up spending something like £18k (can’t remember the exact amount) buying drinks for himself and everyone and champagne for whoever he was chatting up after the game - and then paid the tab and the next morning he tried to claw the money back from the other players by texting saying “everyone owes me £750 each” (or whatever it was) and no one paid because they felt he was just offering people drinks and they weren’t going to cover a tab that they had no control over and he was earning a tonne more than all of them.
Genuinely, it’s possible he’s absolutely broke at this stage - and really needs to get his **** together.
The horror story was on this journey is Anto Stokes. You look at his life now, everything about it and you want to run away from it.
It’s a short career and even with those 4 years of ****ing around, Aaron still has enough natural talent and ability to reach a level that 99.99% couldn’t. He could still go on to be a premier league attacker and still have a really good career
There are definitely parallels with Stokes alright. It's entirely possible that we'll be talking about Connolly being flat broke, turning to crime and ending up in prison 10 years from now, or sooner. But it's also possible that he can still turn it around, have a really good football career and retire to a comfortable lifestyle in 10 years, like Stokes should be doing now instead of splitting his time between the north inner city and prison. There's also a third possibility which is that he does turn things around, has a good career, and still ends up flat broke at the end of it. It's all still in his own hands so hopefully this is the turning point - it may or may not be.
He is broke (and likely in deep debt as of now). He did say the PFA paid for his rehab. And from elatedscum’s U21 story, sounds like €18K was an average night out for Aaron the past 5 or so years – imagine what the bill would have been if the U21s had actually qualified!
The sceptic in me says he is being used by “family club” Sunderland as a PR puppet (the unusual nature of his signing press release + publishing his interview) but they have given him an opportunity to get his life back on track. Very early days in his recovery so hoping he now realises his good fortune and wish him luck on the long road ahead.
What is mad is that he looked to be flying at Hull last season and he didn't look very fit but he looked very effective when he got scoring.
The hope now is that he is fit - mentally and physically - and doing the right things. If all that is right then he could be better and more consistently better than he was at Hull - and that is a really dangerous player.
He has lost a few important years but there is still plenty hope he can kick on and have a chunk of the career that he might have had.
One issue is that we have heard this kind of talk from him before. The talk was never to this extent though.
Last edited by Olé Olé; 11/10/2024 at 5:35 PM.
Had a chance to watch the interview last night and I agree with Ole above that it was to a different degree and depth and does provide some hope that he can get his career back on track. It reminds me of what Dele Alli is going through at the moment. An incredibly promising player who reached the top of the top followed by a long period where his career was slipping out of control due to his addiction issues. Some failed attempts at rehabilitation followed by a full public disclosure of the demons that were tormenting him and now he seems to be on a more promising trajectory - albeit a long road back to mental health and, ultimately, game time. In terms of what IFK101 mentions, I think that might be a little cynical. I think you'd have to assume that all parties would want to build in some public and self-accountability into Aaron's words - which, in a way, we've heard before. I see it as more of an insurance policy for Sunderland that they were likely all to happy to sign up for, rather than an exercise in PR.
Also agree with Ole that its interesting to think how good he could be - given how his form never really dropped off a cliff even when he was, assumption here, at his low ebb.
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
I think its a bit unfair to say we've heard this kind of talk from him before. Yes he did say that he needed to get his career back on track and he said all the right things when going to Italy, but the lad has now faced up to addiction issues and went to rehab so I do think this is completely different. The way he spoke about his parents in particular was incredibly genuine and you could see in him how much its hurt him to disappoint them.
I've been a massive critic of him because I thought he was pi$$ing his career away. He had so much talent and I thought he was going to end up as the guy on the bar stool in 20 years talking about what might have been. Whatever it was that brought him to the realization that he needed to change his life is irrelevant, the important thing is that he did. Hes still young enough that he can have 10 years of a good career ahead of him, and he does still have the talent to be an excellent player.
That interview took massive balls to do. He came across incredibly well and he would make you want to see him do well after it. Im sure we've all seen people in our lives wasting away due to addiction issues and never face up to it. He deserves a lot of credit for trying to get a hold of this now and I hope that its a new beginning for him.
Its really not that complicated!!!
It's very brave to do the interview, and a huge step, but it's only a step, he'll have a long way to go to get a handle on his life, and doing it while under the pressure that comes with being a high level footballer, he may have a lifetime of ups and downs ahead of him, can only wish him luck, probably best we're not overly harsh on what comes of his footballing performances for the next while.
I did intentionally say "in a way" in my post.
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
I think the interview is a huge step with his recovery. Coming out so publicly as an addict is also pretty much drawing a line that this is his last chance. If he goes back to his old ways then he's unlikely to ever be trusted by a half decent club again - not to mind all those wishing him well today.
There's a series of choices that falling off the wagon entails and he's added an extra layer of consequence to falling off the wagon again.
Very impressed by him and very brave. For every few tales of people's lives being destroyed by addiction, there's one that's inspirational. Wishing him all the best that he remains in the latter.
Coming down from my soapbox now
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