Playmaker's EFL 72: #21 Isaac Olaofe

We're almost up to our 'top 20' of the Playmaker 27 but first, we have one more player to go in our series on the best of the EFL this season.

It's certainly been no easy task, but - just to clarify - our '72' is less a roll call of the best footballers in the EFL and more a tribute to those players who have enjoyed the most memorable seasons while racking up the most impressive stats.

Whatever the criteria, we're confident in our selections of the most outstanding players through the Championship, League One, and League Two and welcome any debate on the subject!

The top scorer for the League Two champions this season, presenting number 21... Isaac Olaofe.

#21 Isaac Olaofe (Stockport County)

Isaac Olaofe first found his feet in football during the final two of his three loan spells at Sutton United helping the club get promoted from the National League to League Two.

Olaofe's performances with Sutton earned him a move to an ambitious Stockport County looking for a striker to help fire them to the third tier.

After a fairly modest first half-season at the Hatters during the latter half of the 2022/23 campaign that resulted in just two league goals in 18 appearances, this campaign has been a very different one for Olaofe who is his club’s top scorer this season.

In fact, Olaofe is one of the most clinical strikers in terms of shots to goals in League Two this season.

'Tanto' has a shots-to-goals ratio of 0.29, level with Notts County's Daniel Crowley with the Stockport man having scored 20 goals from just 68 shots in the league this season.

A large number of Olaofe's goal output this season came from an incredible run of games between late September and the end of October.

Beginning with a hat-trick at home in a 5-0 thumping of Wrexham on September 23rd, Olaofe scored nine goals in just eight league games.

While Olaofe hasn't been able to keep up that kind of incredible form (and who could, really?) he has still been a very reliable source of goals.

Only five players in League Two scored more goals in total this campaign than Olaofe (20), with the striker behind only Will Evans, Davis Keillor-Dunn, Paul Mullin, Matt Smith, and Macaulay Langstaff.

Perhaps what is most exciting for Stockport fans now as they look forward to their League One campaign is that Olaofe is that 2023/24 is only the best season of his career so far. 

At just 24, the forward is only going to get better and better and we expect goals to continue to flow next season.

Playmaker's EFL 72...the countdown

22: Carl Piergianni 23: Jaden Philogene 24: Alfie May

25: Will Evans 26: Jamie Reid 27: Morgan Whittaker

28: Conor Chaplin 29: George Thomason 30: Mickey Demetriou

31: Stephy Mavididi 32: Marc Leonard 33: Josh Sheehan

34: Matt Smith 35: Kwame Poku 36: Illan Meslier 37: Aden Flint

38: Ronnie Edwards 39: Josh Sargent 40: Alex Gilbey 41: Ben Sheaf

42: Jobe Bellingham 43: Devante Cole 44: Jacob Greaves 45: Paddy Lane

46: Herbie Kane 47: Dan James 48: Archie Collins 49: Karamoko Dembele

50: Haji Wright 51: Dan Crowley 52: Cameron Brannagan 53: Aaron Collins

54: Andy Cook 55: Connor Shaughnessy 56: Jannik Vestergaard

57: Willy Gnonto 58: Ellis Simms 59: Charlie Hughes 60: Fatawu Isshaku

61: Sam Hoskins 62: Paul Mullin 63: Chris Martin 64: Omari Hutchinson

65: Isaac Hutchinson 66: Sam Tickle 67: Ben Hinchcliffe 68: Michał Helik

69: Lewis Wing 70: Rob Apter 71: Kyle Walker-Peters 72: Alex Palmer