Catch up with the latest Official A-Leagues Fantasy talking points from Round 25, brought to you by Liberty.
Another brilliant weekend of Official A-Leagues Fantasy action has been and gone and several high-scorers caught the eye, creating the big talking points at the end of Round 25 in the Isuzu UTE A-League.
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Monster haul required for Lolley to trump last season’s fantasy king
Joe Lolley has had a season to remember at Sydney FC – but it’s going to take a performance akin to his Round 4 dominance of Adelaide United to get him past Craig Goodwin’s league-leading points total of 391 in the 2022-23 campaign.
Goodwin dominated the league last campaign, scoring 10 goals and notching 15 assists and leading Adelaide United to the Semi-Finals. His 391-point haul is 35 higher than Lolley’s current tally of 356 – and breaching Goodwin’s total isn’t totally out of the question. The Sky Blues winger has twice scored 36 or greater in a single fantasy round this season: 36 points in Round 9, and 40 in Round 4.
Jamie Maclaren (305 points) was the only other player to breach the 300-point mark last season; this time around, both Lolley (356) and Melbourne City midfielder Tolgay Arslan (312) have surpassed the 300-point mark, while Zach Clough (291), Adam Taggart (285), Ángel Torres (285) and Jay O’Shea (274) all are within reach of the points milestone.
Top 10 scorers last season
- Craig Goodwin: 391 points
- Jamie Maclaren: 305 points
- Brandon Borrello: 279 points
- Jay O’Shea: 276 points
- Jason Cummings: 246 points
- Marco Tulio: 235 points
- Joe Lolley: 228 points
- Ryan Kitto: 228 points
- Oskar Zawada: 226 points
- Marco Tilio: 213 points
Postponed fixture puts Irankunda in pole position to dominate final found of fantasy
Nestory Irankunda is in the form of his young career as he prepares to depart the Isuzu UTE A-League for Bayern Munich.
And due to the postponement of his side’s Round 25 fixture against Central Coast Mariners, the 18-year-old producing big fantasy numbers looms as the best selection in your squads for the final round of the campaign.
Last season, Irankunda only breached the 10-point fantasy mark on six occasions, posting a highest single-round score of 12 in the 2022-23 campaign.
For large portions of the current season it was more of the same from Irankunda, but a combination of double gameweeks and a six-game stretch that has garnered six goals and two assists have seen the electric winger become a fantasy weapon.
Irankunda has now posted scores of 30, 20 and 27 in his last three gameweeks, and has a three-game average of 25.7 – the most of any player in the league heading into the final week of the fantasy season.
Irankunda is in 20.7% of fantasy squads heading into Round 26.
New Golden Boot leader leads scoring charts in Round 25
Having trailed Bruno Fornaroli in the Golden Boot race for the majority of the campaign, Perth Glory striker Adam Taggart looks set to pip the Melbourne Victory star at the post after a brace against Western United that took him to the top of the scoring charts.
Glory lost 4-3 to Western United in a result that confirmed the Western Australian outfit as this season’s wooden spooners – a fact that makes Taggart’s 19-goal contribution all the more impressive this season.
Taggart can only be realistically caught by Fornaroli (18 goals) or Newcastle Jets striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos (16 goals) in the Golden Boot race in the final round of the season.
The Glory co-captain’s two-goal haul against Western United resulted in a 23-point fantasy haul – far and away the best of any player in Round 25.
Taggart led the way in a 4-3-3 formation in the Official A-Leagues Fantasy Team of the Week:
ISUZU UTE A-LEAGUE FANTASY TEAM OF THE WEEK
GKP: Filip Kurto (14)
DEF: Corey Brown (18), Kai Trewin (15), Damien Da Silva (14), Tom Aldred (13)
MID: Jed Drew (17), Riku Danzaki (16), Steven Ugarkovic (12)
FWD: Adam Taggart (23), Kosta Barbarouses (15), Leo Natel (13)
