Thomas James O'Connor (born 21 April 1999) is an Irish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a defender and

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for club

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

Club career

Born in

Kilkenny Kilkenny (). is a city in County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region and in the province of Leinster. It is built on both banks of the River Nore. The 2016 census gave the total population of Kilkenny as 26,512. Kilken ...

, O'Connor first joined the

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

academy in 2015. He was contracted to the club until June 2021 having signed a two-year contract extension in January 2019. On 29 August 2019 O'Connor signed for

League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

side Gillingham on loan until January 2020. He made his debut for the club two days later in a 5–0 league win over

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

. His first league goal for the club was an 83rd-minute equaliser against Bristol Rovers on 17 September 2019. On 31 December 2019 his loan with the club was extended until the end of the 2019–20 season. He returned to Southampton at the conclusion of the 2019–20 season, having made 32 appearances for the Kent side in all competitions. On 29 September 2020 he re-signed for Gillingham on loan for the 2020–21 season. On 23 June 2021 it was announced that he would sign a two-year deal for League One side

Burton Albion Burton Albion Football Club is a professional association football club in the town of Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club moved its home groun ...

following the expiry of his Southampton contract. He moved to

of the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

for an undisclosed fee in January 2022, making his debut for the Welsh side in a 1–0 away league defeat to

Torquay United Torquay United Football Club is a professional football club based in Torquay, Devon, England. The team currently compete in the , the fifth tier of English football. They have played their home matches at Plainmoor since 1921 and are nicknamed ...

International career

O'Connor was called up to the Republic of Ireland U19 squad in February 2017. He made his debut as a substitute in a 1–0 win over Portugal. He was called up to the Republic of Ireland U21 squad in November 2019, making his debut in a 0–1 win over Armenia in a

2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship The 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship (also known as UEFA Under-21 Euro 2021) was the 23rd edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship (26th edition if the Under-23 era is also included), the biennial international youth football ch ...

qualifier.

Career statistics

Honours

Wrexham *

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The compet ...

runner-up: 2021–22

References

1999 births Living people Republic of Ireland men's association footballers Southampton F.C. players Gillingham F.C. players Burton Albion F.C. players Wrexham A.F.C. players English Football League players Men's association football defenders Men's association football midfielders Republic of Ireland men's youth international footballers Republic of Ireland men's under-21 international footballers National League (English football) players Association footballers from County Kilkenny {{Ireland-footy-defender-stub