Aaron Hickey’s £18 million move from Serie A to the Premier League with Brentford will be career-changing for the young full back as he joins one of football’s most innovative clubs.
The 20-year-old, who made 36 appearances for Bologna last season, scored five goals and had one assist in his second full season in the Italian top division.
Hickey has predominantly played on the left side during his time at Bologna and Hearts. However, the versatile defender will be deployed on the right by Thomas Frank this season.
Unlike his Scotland international team-mate Andy Robertson, Hickey is not an all-action full back but more reserved and measured. He is safe in possession but with an understanding of when to dribble forward and support attacks.
According to Lee Dykes, Brentford’s technical director and head of recruitment, Hickey’s ability to play on either side makes him “effectively two players in one”.
“It’s always good to get a young player into Brentford, because that is what the philosophy stands for — we want to get young hungry players into our first team and we want them to do well,” Dykes said.
“Aaron has achieved so much up to this point and he has so much to achieve going forward. Given what I’ve seen, I think everyone should be excited because he’s a tremendous young player.”
Dykes said the club identified Hickey a number of years ago and kept tabs on him ever since. “He was basically identified because he was a very young player playing senior select football [for Hearts, aged 16] and he was identified as a player of interest,” Dykes said.
“At the time we didn’t really have the gap for him, and we did a lot of work on him in the 2019-20 year, but we didn’t have the gap in the first team, but we kept that work going along. When he made the move to Italy that was looked upon as a credit to him, as it’s a difficult move.”
Convincing a player to leave Serie A could be a challenge, but Brentford, who finished last season comfortably mid-table in the Premier League, had no such issues.
Dykes said there were a number of qualities that stood out from Hickey’s time at Hearts but also in his recent development too. “He’s obviously very fit, lots of energy, grown in size since he’s gone to Italy, grown in how he reads the game in a defensive side,” Dykes said. “He’s two footed, can score goals, can assist goals.”
In the Sky Bet Championship, Frank’s side played with a back three and a back four. In the former, the wing backs who would drop in to create a back five when Brentford were defending and would join the midfield and attackers when in possession. However, towards the end of last season in the Premier League, Frank opted for a back four. Hickey is both technically able and tactically astute enough to play in both systems, and on either side.
Hickey is a left back by trade, but as the touchmap below demonstrates, last season at Bologna he was also deployed on the right. Irrespective of what side he is on, he tends to operate predominantly near the touchline, providing width for his team.
David Anderson, host of The Bees Tactical Podcast, says that being able to play on both sides without looking out of place is one of Hickey’s strengths. “What stands out immediately is how two-footed he is,” Anderson said. “He’s almost 50:50 off each foot in terms of both passing and shooting — unusual for a player, let alone a defender.
“With his versatility, he can play on the right side or the left. He can play outside, he can play in; if he plays on the left wing, for example, he doesn’t look like a right-footed player there, he can go inside and outside.”
Typically, full backs, especially those on the left, have one dominant foot but Hickey bucks the trend: last season he made 59 per cent of his passes on his left foot and 41 per cent on his right.
Despite scoring five goals, Hickey’s offensive output may not be as prolific in the Premier League. Hickey recorded an average of 0.04 expected goals per 90 minutes last season, but scored at a rate of 0.16 per 90. Expected goals are a measure of chance quality, and Hickey appears to have enjoyed something of a hot streak last season. However, despite his goals it is unlikely Brentford signed him for his shooting abilities. He typically takes 0.67 shots per 90 from an average distance of 21 yards away from goal, as shown in the shot map below.
Hickey’s main qualities lie elsewhere; a talented technical player, he has a strong pass success rate of 81.8 per cent, which ranks among the top 24 per cent of full backs in Europe’s top five leagues.
Hickey is not a player who spreads play; the majority of his passes are short and to feet. Last season, on average, he attempted 41.7 passes per game, but his success rate declined according to the length of passes he attempted: his completion rate for short passes was 91 per cent; medium-length passes 82.2 per cent and long-length passes 52.2 per cent.
Despite an existing tactical preconception of all wing backs marauding forward incessantly, at Brentford they are usually asked to perform diligent defensive duties, offering protection to the centre backs and support to the centre midfielders. Here, Hickey’s composure on the ball and ability to find safe passes will be valued enormously.
In terms of defensive output, Hickey already profiles very similarly to his new team-mates despite his age.
Hickey can be an offensive influence though, predominantly through how he carries the ball forward. He makes 4.21 progressive carries per 90 minutes (a progressive carry is defined as a carry which moves the ball towards the opponent’s goal by at least five yards or into the penalty area — it also excludes carries towards goal in the deepest 40 per cent of the pitch).
Last season he attempted 1.76 dribbles per 90 minutes, completed at a success rate of 50.9 per cent, demonstrating his ability to run forward with the ball — as a wing back, Hickey tends to receive these passes in the second phase of play (i.e. after the goalkeeper has passed to the centre backs). Consequently, Hickey often receives passes under pressure from an opposing winger, full back or centre midfielder, but is still able to retain the ball well — which will endear him to Frank.
Anderson says one area in which Brentford struggled this season was with Sergi Canós and Mads Roerslev’s ball retention rates — the pair are adventurous and forward thinking, and consequently both have high turnover rates. For Frank, minimising the amount of turnovers is important as these are when teams are at their most vulnerable.
The one area of concern for Brentford will be Hickey’s physical prowess. Standing around 5ft 8ins, the Scottish full back won just 29.3 per cent of his aerial duels last season. However, should he play in a back five, the aerial presence of the centre backs will be enough to support the young full back — though he may find himself targeted by diagonal long passes or on set pieces.
Brentford do not just have a habit for picking up promising young players cheaply, it’s central to the club’s business model. Matthew Benham, the club’s owner, made his riches first as a professional gambler before setting up his own betting company, in both instances using data and trends to find value in unassuming areas. Benham, with Rasmus Ankersen — now the majority shareholder of Southampton — first trialled their data-led approach with Danish side FC Midtjylland, before moving to the then-League One side. The data element to player recruitment will be something that will benefit Hickey too.
According to football finance author and lecturer Kieran Maguire, the Brentford financial model is geared around identifying young talents through data-led scouting and developing them to eventually be sold on for profit.
“They [Brentford] don’t have an academy, instead they have a B team which picks up players that have been released by other teams in London, and they play a series of matches around Europe, to develop them,” Maguire said.
“Brentford use a data-driven approach to try and gain value in the football market — trying to value individual parameters that are undervalued by other clubs.”
Maguire said the metrics themselves are a closely-guarded secret, but are likely based around turnover rates, the ability for players to retain possession in the final third, shot conversion rates and expected goals. The club also has its own in-house data collection and models which factor in on-ball and off-ball contributions by players across the pitch.
Hickey appears to have ticked the boxes for Brentford, and according to Maguire, Brentford’s financial model and player development pathway means there are few better places for young players to develop, gaining Premier League experience and with the incentive of a big-money move to a club higher up the football food chain with strong performances.
Players such as Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma are the most obvious examples of this, with Brentford able to turn a significant profit on both; Maguire says between 2016-21, Brentford made £138.6 million from player sales, from an initial outlay of £10.5 million.
Continuing to develop Hickey is very important to Dykes, who admitted that the club believes Hickey can play top-level football. With an outlay of £18 million, Brentford will be expecting to recoup far more, should Hickey realise his potential.
“We know his strengths and his development areas and it’s important to still continue to develop both so that he reaches his maximum potential, hopefully whilst at Brentford, but then has the opportunity to go to bigger levels of football,” Dykes said.
“Players at Brentford get a lot of resource and I can understand why players do choose Brentford; because they know they’re going to get worked and they’re going go into so much detail on their individual development, their strength areas, their development areas and at Brentford I think you can develop that potential quickly.”