Aaron Drinan interview: Swindon Town striker nicknamed ‘Drinaldo’ hitting the heights under Ian Holloway | Football News

Aaron Drinan has netted eight league goals for Swindon so far this season and is currently on a six-game scoring streak.

Coventry’s Haji Wright is level with him, but only Erling Haaland (9) has scored more across the top four divisions of English football.

With just 10 games played, it is already the 27-year-old’s second-best return in a season in his career.

The man some Swindon fans are calling ‘Drinaldo’ is making it look easy at the moment; he was a shoo-in for Sky Bet League Two Player of the Month for September.

But considering the Irishman scored just eight across the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons combined, it is natural to wonder where this purple patch has come from.

To do that, you have to go back to the beginning of the year.

Following the 3-3 draw with Port Vale at the County Ground on February 8, Drinan did not play for the remainder of last season.

“It was a PCL [posterior cruciate ligament] injury and I was out for three-and-a-bit months,” he tells Sky Sports.

“I was starting to pick up form and feeling in a really good place where I was contributing, then the injury came out of nowhere. I tried to flick a ball in and my knee decided to lock.

“Initially, I went to see a specialist to see if it needed surgery, but he just said it could heal on its own.

“I was in a brace for maybe seven weeks, so I had to continue doing rehab in that off-season.”

Once he was fit, but before he signed a new two-year contact, Drinan had to film himself doing Ian Holloway’s punishing fitness test, known ominously as ‘The Run’.

“It was a bit of a mad one when I was told!” he says, recoiling in his chair as he recalls the shuttle run of 20 yards, 40, 60, 80, 100 – and back down again.

“But I was back running and sprinting at that time and I didn’t really mind because I was in that fitness block anyway.

“I was back home [in Ireland], but no one was around and I needed to try record it. I just put my phone in a shoe and I was just running up and down the pitch.”

It would never have seemed that way at the time, but the injury does seem to have been a blessing in disguise for Drinan.

“It was important to get the off-season right to get that fire in my belly to try and get back into a team who finished off the season really well.

“But not completing a full season, where my body probably didn’t take the beating it would’ve done if I did play the final three-and-a-half months, meant I was able to keep my body just ticking over in the summer. I do think it’s done me good.”

Drinan did miss the 1-0 win over Newport on October 4 with an Achilles complaint, but the Robins were not in action during the international break, so he will have had more than a fortnight to recover.

He thinks there is more to come.

“When my confidence is this high and with the way I’m playing and converting chances, I feel like I can continue doing it,” he adds.

“The manager talks about freedom on the pitch to go and do what you want and feel what you need in the game. That has freed me up and it’s freed a lot of the boys up and I think we’re thriving off that.

“When the team’s playing well, you’re more than likely going to get chances. If you asked me at the start of season, I always knew I could have a good start to the season, but I didn’t probably expect it to be this good.”

He has his eyes on the magic 20-goal milestone now, which would surpass the 16 he scored for Leyton Orient in 2021/22.

But, even at this early stage, he is targeting something to go alongside it. Swindon are second in League Two, with a game in hand, after all.

“If you can win the league, that’s fully the best season you can have.

“Personally, if I’m contributing the goals I am to that, then I can set my eyes on getting to 20, which I believe I can.

“If you’re touching 20 and you win a league or even get promotion, as a forward, I don’t think it can really get any better than having a really good goal return and achieving something as a team alongside it.”

If Drinan keeps this form up, Swindon might be on their way back to League One.