Sunderland manager Regis Le Bris needed just one hour to be persuaded by new star, 24, to give him a career lifeline
REGIS LE BRIS revealed it only took an hour for Aaron Connolly to convince him that he deserved a shot at resurrecting his career.
The Irish forward, 24, joined promotion-chasing Sunderland on a free this week after three months unemployed.
Connolly burst on the scene with Brighton in 2019 with a brace against Tottenham.
Four years later, after failed loan spells at Luton, Middlesbrough and Italian side Venezia, he left the Amex having featured more on the gossip pages rather than sport ones.
He scored eight times for Hull City last term in the Championship but questions were raised over his physical condition.
Despite their bright start, Sunderland have only had 19-year-old Eliezer Mayenda as a recognised striker after deadline day signing Ahmed Abdullahi was sidelined for three months.
The club’s recruitment team had produced a number of suggestions to help bolster Le Bris’ attack.
But the Frenchman says he already knew the talents of Connolly and all it took was a chat at the club’s training ground for him to offer him a lifeline.
The Black Cats boss said: “I had many, many profiles during the transfer window and so I watched many games from him before. Then, during this period when he was available, I watched other games.
“Technically, I knew him before but from his profile, and the others were exactly the same, what exactly is his pathway and connection with this project and his willingness to become a high level player again.
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“So it was the connection with our team, club and energy and I just had a one hour conversation with him and at the end it was clear that he was ready.
“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.”
When asked if this was the last chance saloon for Connolly, Le Bris said: “I don’t know, we’ll see. The experience needs to be lived.”
Explaining how Connolly can help his talented teens such as Jobe Bellingham and Chris Rigg, Le Bris continued: “I’ll explain it for Aaron… He maybe got carried away before and now, after, he understood that he could have many problems if that is the case.
“So these experiences are very helpful to those players that don’t know these potential problems.
“Chris Mepham, for example, is great for that as when we have spoken in here for example he has shown great maturity.
“I have shown two or three clips this week where Chris was involved with a mistake and he just said ‘it was my fault’ instead of trying to find an excuse.
“So this experience and this behaviour is very important for everybody because we can all make mistakes but we need to learn very quickly.
“The young players, we can expect them to not make any mistakes, but it is not possible. If you take risks then you will make mistakes, that is for sure, but if you learn quickly it’s OK.”
And when pressed on whether his new recruit has now matured, Le Bris added: “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.”
Le Bris stated that he realistically expects Connolly to be ready for match action after the international break.
However, both Ian Poveda and Alan Browne are due to return to the Sunderland squad for the trip to Watford after their respective thigh and knee niggles.