Daniel Farke outlines Leeds United youngster's 'brutal' target as this week's training focus revealed

Georginio's form throughout the first half of this season has been one of the more enjoyable aspects to Leeds' performances as the team have challenged for automatic promotion. The 21-year-old's nine assists is the joint-most in the division, alongside Ipswich Town's Leif Davis - a former Leeds player himself - however Farke is keen for Rutter to improve in other areas, such as his finishing.

The France Under-21 international has four league goals this term, fewer than attacking teammates Dan James, Crysencio Summerville and Joel Piroe, despite starting in a more advanced position. Farke has explained why this is the case, insisting Rutter's ability to lead the press when United are out of possession is particularly important.

Georginio, which is the name he bears on the reverse of his shirt, has found himself in numerous goalscoring positions this season, only to squander the opportunities presented to him. He has more than made up for the occasional poor finish with his creative play and is, in more than one metric, the Championship's most creative outlet. No player in the second tier has recorded a greater Expected Assisted Goals (xAG) figure than Georginio this season, according to Opta, highlighting his undeniable creative ability. Nor has any player come close to matching the number of 'big chances' the youngster has created, which are categorised as shots greater in value than 0.30 Expected Goals (xG).

Rutter's own xG is the eighth-highest in the Championship, per Opta data, meaning he is routinely found in good shooting positions and has ample opportunity to score. However, Georginio is currently underperforming his xG by 3.50. Considering his total xG for the season so far is 7.50, that means the Frenchman should have been expected to score almost twice as many as his four-goal haul.

Where such variance between actual goals scored and a player's Expected Goals occurs, this tends to suggest a regression - or in Rutter's case, a progression - to the mean. That is to say, the young forward can be expected to score more frequently in the second half of the season than he has in the first. In layman's terms: he is getting the chances, and it's only a matter of time before he puts them away on a more consistent basis.

"Being there with clinical finishes is still what he could improve, he could already be there with double figures," Farke said after the 1-1 draw with Coventry City at the weekend.

"The only thing that was missing was the clinical, brutal finish and it has a bit more to do perhaps with our youth in the offensive players, that players still having to step up a bit. We spoke before the season that end product is something players like Cree Summerville, Daniel James, Georgi Rutter could and need to improve a little bit. We have improved a lot but sometimes a game comes along that shows you're not the finished product, still a work in progress," the Leeds boss added.

This week, Farke admitted he would place a particular focus on shooting practice, ahead of Ipswich's visit on Saturday: "It's always good to find balance, not to lose self confidence in terms of finishing, because we've scored many fantastic goals, some team goals that were a bit like goal of the season.

"So also to remind them about these situations and remind them how well they've done in terms of end product, but also the last two to three per cent greediness to score, this is definitely a topic for the upcoming training week."

Georginio is without a goal in four matches, but has registered assists in four of Leeds' last six matches. Additionally, the goals he has scored this season have demonstrated supreme quality at this level, such as the taking down of Ethan Ampadu's 60-yard pass, holding off Bashir Humphreys' challenge and slotting past the Swansea City goalkeeper last month.