Leeds United manager Daniel Farke on the secret behind Dominic Calvert-Lewin's form

The Sheffield-born striker was available on a free transfer this summer because of his patchy injury record towards the end of his time with Everton saw him released by the Toffees.

But Farke's approach was to hold back Calvert-Lewin's involvement until he was physically ready – his full debut did not come until mid-September – and put the emphasis on hard work, not kid gloves.

The 28-year-old has played every game since, scoring in the last four.

Farke explained it was down to "Hard work and also smart work.

"I am not a believer in putting a player with an injury record into cotton wool and let him just recover and just be available for the games.

"My attitude is always, 'Let's work very hard with him, let's build this physical resistance,' and he was exactly on the same page.

"This is why we were a bit careful to bring him in initially and we wanted to give him a little pre-season of four weeks before we involved him the first team.

"But also to do it in a smart way, not like the gut feeling of a manager 20 years ago okay.

"We are also using the knowledge of our medical department.

"We assess the players more or less each day in terms of fatigue and physical data but my feeling is you will never develop, never progress and never build any resilience if you just recover.

"Hard work is always the answer for me and this is what he is putting in, what we all as a group are."

Leeds are not in a market to buy finished products, and in the case of goalkeeper Lucas Perri it is his distribution that has been found wanting since joining from Lyon.

"We knew before (we signed him) there are some challenges in his game where he needs to improve especially because of the intensity of the pressing at Premier League level," admitted Fark. "He has to adapt.

"It's his first season in English football and he was already out twice with injuries so I think it has improved and will improve.

"It's something we work hard on, especially our goalkeeper coach.

"For me it's also important that in the last games he made some crucial saves and this is still more or less the main topic for our goalkeeper.

"You can have a perfect (playmaker) in the goal but if he never saves a ball... I would always go for the perfect goalstopper.

"In these terms he has shown some really good performances. If he was also world-class with his feet probably he wouldn’t be affordable for us.

"In the summer we knew that all the players that we have signed or are with us have a few challenges where they have to improve."

Leeds have decided Daniel James does not need surgery on his hamstring tendon injury but both he and Lukas Nmecha (hamstring) will miss the Saturday evening Premier League game at home to Crystal Palace. Sean Longstaff has not yet returned to team training.

If Calvert-Lewin has thrived, the opposite is true of last season's top scorer Joel Piroe, now behind winger Noah Okafor in the centre-forward pecking order. Farke insists he has not lost faith.

"Joel is a player I really love," he stressed. "His finishing skills are world class. He's a great character.

"Whenever we chase a game or we are very dominant I'm pretty fortunate I can pick him because if I trust a player who finishes the situation.

"When we are not that dominant or have to make sure we are a bit more solid sometimes you perhaps need a bit more pace or physicality.

"But it's not like I want to change him as a player. It's just at the moment sometimes we have a game where we can't be that dominant.

"If we can then I'm pretty sure he can be there with many end products. He's still definitely in my plans."