Stockport County star reveals Jamie Vardy inspiration and sets bold 2024/25 target | OneFootball

Stockport County striker Tanto Olaofe has revealed his personal goal for next season as he rises into League One with the Hatters.

Speaking to the Ball Talk podcast, the 24-year-old opened up on his aims for next season, before discussing longer-term goals and his inspirations in football.

The former Millwall striker experienced the most productive campaign of his senior career last season in League Two with County and now faces his first encounter with League One at the beginning of next season.

He backs himself not only to keep up his promising form but to go one better, despite the jump in division.

Olaofe aims to better his best season

The forward hit double figures for only the second time in his young career last season, notching 20 goals and providing two assists across 43 league games during the last campaign.

After confirming that he surpassed this season's target of 15 goals, Olaofe told Ball Talk: "I'm proud of what I've achieved this season, 20 goals. It's a good benchmark.

"Now, I'm just thinking next season, I've just got to do better than that. But, yeah, I feel like, you know when something clicks for you? Obviously, I scored the hat-trick against Wrexham and yeah, just from there, it just clicked for me. And that's when the goals just started rolling in."

Later on in the podcast, Olaofe recognised that he is set to face a tougher challenge in the third tier, but he still believes he can better his previous campaign.

"Ultimately, for me, [the aim] is just to try to do better than I did this season," the striker said."Even though it's a tougher league, I don't see why not."

Asked for a precise target by host Lewis Bryon, Olaofe confirmed that he is aiming for more than 20 goals this season, feeding into a wider ambition to reach triple figures in career goals by the time he reaches the age of 28.

He has identified areas to improve

Bryon also pointed out that Olaofe had a remarkable conversion rate in League Two last season, which is the number of goals a player scores per shot they take.

The former Sutton United loanee comes out joint top in the league in this metric, level with Notts County's Daniel Crowley, with a rate of 0.29 goals per shot.

That makes for impressive reading at first sight, but Olaofe believes it feeds into why he didn't score even more, and what he feels he has to improve on for next season.

"Do you know what? I probably don't shoot enough you know," Olaofe told Ball Talk. "That's probably why my conversion rate is so high.

"But yeah, next season I'll definitely be taking more shots."

He has become lethal in front of goal. His increase in confidence and good decision-making has been clear for spectators to see this season, but it appears that isn't enough to satisfy Olaofe just yet.

Taking inspiration from Jamie Vardy

Olaofe is an avid watcher of football and told Ball Talk that he often takes note of things he sees to try and improve his game further.

His constant hunger to improve made further sense when he revealed that his striking inspiration is Jamie Vardy.

Oloafe said: "I love Jamie Vardy. I just feel like, for what he's done and how he's climbed up the leagues, it's amazing.

"It just shows: hard work does pay."

Sprinklings of Vardy can be seen in Olaofe's game, using his pace and determination to charge at goal in possession, and charge towards defenders out of possession; constantly making a nuisance of himself regardless of what phase the play is in.

It also feeds into another of the Stockport forward's ambitions: to get promoted from every league at the top of the English pyramid. With National League and League Two already completed, the 24-year-old has just League One and the Championship left to conquer.

Hatters' fans will hope he reaches as many of those longer-term targets as possible in a blue and white shirt but, regardless of what the more distant future holds for Olaofe, the fans should be in for some ride if he hits his goalscoring aim for the second consecutive season next term.