Aaron Hickey (born 10 June 2002) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a left-back or central midfielder for Serie A club Bologna.
On 10 May 2019, Hickey made his debut for the club in a 2–1 loss away to Aberdeen, in the penultimate game of the 2018–19 season. On 25 May 2019, Hickey started in the 2019 Scottish Cup Final against Celtic, becoming the youngest player to appear in the final since John Fleck in 2008.
On 22 September 2019, he scored his first senior goal, the winner in the Edinburgh derby as Hearts won 2–1 away at Hibernian.
In August 2020 he was linked with a transfer away from the club, with interest from German club Bayern Munich, Italian club Bologna, English club Aston Villa, and French club Lyon. Hearts manager Craig Levein also revealed that Celtic had made “five or six” attempts to sign Hickey. Towards the end of the month the BBC reported that Bologna had made the first official bid for Hickey, although Hearts said that the offer was too low.
Hickey completed a move to Bologna for an undisclosed fee believed to be around £1.5 million.
Hickey made his first Serie A appearance in a 4–1 win against Parma. His first season at Bologna was cut short by injury in March 2021, restricting him to 12 appearances. At the end of the season, he was nominated for the 2021 Golden Boy award.
Hickey returned to Bologna’s first team following his injury, starting the first game of the 2021–22 season against Salernitana, which Bologna won 3–2.On 21 September 2021, Hickey scored his first goal for Bologna, in their 2–2 draw with Genoa in the Serie A.
Aaron has already 4 goals to his name in 19 matches.We have compared him with other defenders from the Top 5 League.
Aaron Hickey is a Midfielder who has appeared in 19 matches this season in Serie A, playing a total of 1462 minutes. Aaron Hickey gets an average of 0 assists for every 90 minutes that the player is on the pitch. Aaron Hickey scored a total of 4 goals so far this season in the league.
We can see that he ranks lower on tackles vs clearance with only 0.65 in the 3rd quadrant compared to Denys Bain who ranks at 2.0.
The young left-back may appear slight but he is tenacious in the tackle being quite active defensively where the Scottish defender won 20 tackles compared to Trent Alexander Arnold of Liverpool, who has 24 tackles to his name. He ranks 197 in applying pressure, with pressure % coming to 25.9, compared to TAA pressure at 142 and pressure % 38. He has won 9 aerial duels taking the aerial duel win % at 33.3. Compared to him, Alexander Arnold won 12 aerial duels taking his win % at 54.5. The young Scottish defender has 20 interceptions to his name,with TAA at 40. Acquiring this skill so early in his development is really impressive, this is a skill that most players tend to master later on in their careers.
What is striking about the young Bologna full-back is his athleticism, namely his pace and his ability to cover a lot of ground which he used to great effect. With such great anticipation, the young defender has a great sense of where the danger is and so he prevents certain goals as a result.
In recent years the role of the full-back has increasingly become more important in terms of the build-up play as teams look to play out from the back. Also, a full-back is tasked with being more creative, where they are being asked to progress the ball into the final third from deep.
In ball Progression, Hickey ranks only 5, compared to Nico Williams who ranks at 20. Aaron is not much of a ball progressor.
He ranks lower in Passes which are made into danger zones. He ranks at mere 0.4, compared to Tomiyasu, who ranks at 11.
He ranks at 38 in passes made with passes attempted. Marcelo outguns him with 140.
Hickey also fits the criteria perfectly for a full-back as the young Scotsman played as a central midfielder in the Hearts academy before being deployed as a left-back. As a result, the Bologna full-back looks to receive the ball, is composed in possession and is fantastic at managing the ball in tight situations. He fits the role magnificently with the skills he learned playing as a central midfielder.
When the 19-year-old receives the ball, his first option is always trying to progress the ball forward. He tends to play short forward passes, but this seems to be his secondary option he will first look to exploit defensive disorganisation by playing a long pass if the opportunity arises where overall he is a relatively good decision-maker. He does not force any passes if they are not on but he has the passing range when the chance presents itself to open up an opponent’s defence in an instant.
The young full-back attempts around 23 progressive passes per 90 minutes which is not overly high compared to Alexander Arnold, who ranks at 148. What is most striking though is Hickey completes 83.9% of his passes showing his great passing range and decision making, knowing when to play short and when to play the ball long from deep.
From the above heatmap we can see that his passses are mostly down the left side.
The Scottish left-back is unique as he is ambipedal; it is hard to distinguish if he has a stronger foot as he is a natural when passing with either foot. Hickey adds an interesting element to his passing arsenal, he is able to switch from his left to his right foot thus this changes the angle of his body which opens up the entire right side of the pitch.
It also poses a problem for the opposition winger trying to press Hickey, if they press him from the inside he can use his left foot to progress the ball forward down the line. Contrastingly if the opposition press him aggressively from the outside on the left he can shift the ball to his right foot to progress the ball through passing options on the right side of the pitch and while also changing the point of attack.
He is a good carrier plus making successful touches, which places him in the second quadrant. He ranks at 38, compared to Antonio Rudriger, who ranks at 58.
He ranks at 86.3% for the amount of passes a player receives compared to TAA who ranks at 93.8%.
From the above figure we can see that Aaron Hickey ranks higher in pass completion % and % of dribblers tackled. However he ranks decent in goals scored , non penalty goals and shots on Target. However, one aspect which he can improve on is players dribbled past, defensive actions which lead to shots.
According to Athletic, Steven Gerrard’s side are in the market for a new full-back this winter, with one target being Bologna left-back Aaron Hickey. Bologna left-back Aaron Hickey is a Villa player.”
Considering the sheer amount of potential Hickey quite clearly possesses, the news that Johan Lange and his Aston Villa transfer team are interested in a move for the defender is sure to have left the Villa Park faithful buzzing.
Indeed, over his 19 Serie A appearances so far this season, the £7.2m-rated left-back has highly impressed for Bologna, helping his side keep five clean sheets and scoring four goals
These returns have seen the £16k-per-week Scotland U21 international average a SofaScore match rating of 6.85, ranking him as the Italian club’s ninth-best performer in the league.
As such, considering he is still just 19 years of age, it is undeniable that Hickey is a player who has an extremely bright future ahead of him in the professional game, as well as one who could well be Aston Villa’s first-choice left-back for many a year to come.
