Leeds United manager Daniel Farke has admitted he thinks Georginio Rutter is already completely different this season.
Farke was speaking to the press, via Leeds Live, after a disappointing penalty shootout defeat to Salford City in the Carabao Cup.
Daniel Farke named a relatively strong side to try and see off their League Two opposition last night.
They dominated proceedings, having more than 30 shots and constantly testing the Salford City goalkeeper.
However, they weren’t clinical enough and couldn’t add to Pascal Struijk’s strike before full-time.
The penalty shootout went all the way to the tenth taker where Jamie Shackleton was the unfortunate man to miss.
Farke praised the 23-year-old after the game but he’ll still be bitterly disappointed.
Another player who was looking to build on a great performance against Ipswich on Saturday was Georginio Rutter.
Rutter finally broke his scoring duck at the weekend and Farke has backed him to be so much better this season.
He’s already seen an improvement in the 21-year-old but he needs to score more goals or he’ll lose his place to new signing Joel Piroe.
Farke says Rutter is already better this season
Speaking about the young Frenchman, Farke said: “Yes, and he missed the penalty as well. So I think again, he’s a bit like a picture of the whole team.
“So I think also performance wise really good. He put a shift in, workload was good, tried to everything to the end, was a good teammate. Overall good performance.
“Yeah, but also disappointing with the outcome because out of the chances, yes, normally he scores two or three and he’s also pretty clinical in using penalties.
“Also not positive because at the moment he is unbelievably disappointed. He missed so many chances and also missed a penalty.
“So it’s not really positive. But in general, his development, because I think performance wise if you compare this with the end of last season also like, the beginning of pre-season, it’s a different Georginio Rutter.
“We are all happy to have him and right now it’s more like the time to back him and also like to give him lots of compliments for his development because if he goes further on like this, he will score many many decisive goals, but I can’t take away that he is today disappointed as we all are because wanted to go on to the next one.”
Rutter will hope he can improve on a disappointing debut season at Leeds under Farke.
He’s going to have plenty of opportunities to play although Leeds are eyeing another striker before deadline day.
They missed out on Joseph Paintsil with a deal unable to be resurrected following an issue with loyalty payments.
New signings are arriving though, with Joe Rodon set to be joined by another Tottenham player at Elland Road.