Isaac “Tanto” Olaofe (24) is a striker who was born in Lewisham in 1999 and has joined Charlton from Stockport County.
He is a product of the Millwall academy but he made only three senior appearances for the Lions and played most of his senior football during three loan spells at Sutton United. He moved to League Two Stockport County for a rumoured £150k in January 2023.
He scored three goals in 22 appearances during his first half season at County. The 2023-24 season was a more prolific one with 20 goals in 43 appearances - top scoring in a season which saw Stockport promoted to League One. Tanto was the first player in over 20 years to score 20 goals in a season for the Greater Manchester side.
He started the 2023-24 season late due to an operation in the off season but he has a clear injury history otherwise and he missed only five league games in the last two seasons. By the end of last season his minutes played were similar to those of Charlton number 24 Matty Godden.
Stylistically Olaofe can probably be best compared to Tyreece Campbell. Both play as strikers but enjoy the freedom to slide out wide and run at defenders. Where Campbell likes to stand up to opponents and use his bag of tricks to jink past them, Tanto is more comfortable running directly at a defender and using his pace and upper body strength to battle beyond his man. Think of a hybrid between Campbell and Chuks Aneke and you have the right style of player.
Some Addicks have been concerned about Olaofe’s finishing, something which probably comes from a glaring miss in the dying minutes of the Play Off semi final against Leyton Orient. A deeper dive into his stats suggests that his finishing is fine. A total of nine goals feels somewhat underwhelming but it is bang on what would be expected from an expected goals (xG) stat of 9.29. Campbell’s 7 goals came from an xG of only 3.57 suggesting that Campbell could learn how to get into good positions from the Addicks newest recruit, given those high conversion statistics. Sniffer dog Matty Godden outscored his xG by 3 goals and both young strikers mentioned will look to Godden and coach Danny Hylton for tips on improving their finishing further.
On paper Tanto is the ideal Nathan Jones signing. All reviews from Stockport fans suggest that he is a humble, hard working character and his pace, drive and physical strength will be very useful for the aggressive pressing game Jones likes to play.
On completion of the signing Jones said: “He fits everything we want to do here in terms of his profile - he’s young, hungry, athletic and he wants to play at the next level. He’s one that will continue to get better.”
Tanto added: "It's a great feeling. There's a great atmosphere at The Valley so I'm looking forward to playing there. Hopefully I can help elevate the team in the right direction because the current trajectory is a very good one.”
Sam Byrne of The Manchester Evening News, interviewed recently by Louis Mendez for South London Sport, is confident Tanto can manage the step up to Championship level:
"One hundred per cent. This season in League One he did not have the best goal return, but not the worst. He's shown plenty enough that he can take all those attributes he's got at League One level into the Championship.
It’s always going to be a case of being judged on your goal return. If he goes to Charlton and shows all those attributes that I've just described, if he's not scoring the goals and Charlton aren't winning games, then that's where he'll be judged. But if he can start to add that to his game and polish off that goal scoring aspect, then every other attribute he's got are certainly ones that would do well at Championship level.
Stockport went to Crystal Palace in January in the third round of the FA Cup. He gave Marc Guehi a torrid time and had a few big chances. Again, talking about the goal scoring aspect, he'd done all the hard part against Premier League quality defenders and then just not found the finish at the end of it.
A lot of those attributes that he has are very transferable. You can look at things in the Championship in terms of the quality of opposition defenders and thinking that he won't have as much time on the ball or he won't have it all his own way as he has done against certain defences in League One. But when you've got so many strong parts of a game as he has, he's more than capable of stepping up. Then it's just about that last little part of his game that hopefully Nathan Jones can coax out of him."
Welcome to SE7, Tanto!
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