Alex Neil delighted to see Preston North End striker Emil Riis shine at Deepdale to add to his strong away performances

The Danish striker came off the bench with 11 minutes left and quickly had a goal and an assist under his belt.

Riis had saved his best for away games previously, scoring at Reading last month and performing impressively against Queens Park Rangers and Huddersfield.

Doing what he did against Boro was the perfect tonic after the 22-year-old missed a great chance in last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Wycombe.

North End manager Neil said: “We have seen Emil away at QPR, he was outstanding.

“Huddersfield away, he was outstanding. Then there was Reading where he was outstanding.

“This is probably the first time we have seen what Emil is capable of doing at Deepdale.

“He’s only a young lad with a lot of onus on his shoulders because he came in and went pretty much straight into the team.

“Maybe Emil felt there was a lot of pressure on him to start with and that can have a bearing.

“I took him out of the team for a bit and put him back in during the Middlesbrough game.

“He’s doing well, he looked hungry the other night. I thought he had a major impact as did the rest of the lads who came on.”

Neil, who takes his side to play Luton Town at Kenilworth Road tomorrow (3pm), has stressed he didn’t make a major play of Riis’ miss against Wycombe.

He wants to see chances like that put away more often than not but wasn’t going to use it as a stick to beat the centre forward with.

“We’ll talk about it but not really highlight it, that is our approach,” said Neil.

“Mistakes and misses are part and parcel of the match, we recognise that.

“Fans will talk about it as being the worse miss in the world or whatever but we are really balanced with things like that, Emil has got our complete support.”

Neil has Daniel Johnson back in contention tomorrow after the midfielder sat out the Middlesbrough win due to a one-match suspension.

He was pleased to see Andrew Hughes come through 74 minutes unscathed on Wednesday, that being the left-back’s first game since October 31.

Taking him off and putting Josh Earl – himself back from injury – on as a substitute was only precautionary.

Neil said: “Andrew had been out for a while and we had the luxury of having Josh available on the bench.

“I thought young Josh did well when he came on and I was really pleased to give Tom Bayliss some minutes.

“Tom has been getting better and better.”

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