New boy Emil Riis’s pace impresses fellow Preston North End striker Sean Maguire

Riis joined PNE last week for £1.2m from Randers FC in Denmark, making his debut as a substitute for Maguire in the latter stages of Sunday’s 4-2 win at Brentford.

Standing 6ft 3in, it might be assumed that the Dane’s biggest asset to the North End attack is his height.

From what Maguire saw in training at the end of last week though, Riis has pace aplenty.

The striker is currently on international duty with the Denmark Under-21s squad.

Maguire told the Lancashire Post: “Emil looked really quick in training and I thought he looked quick in the Brentford game.

“Him and Tom Barkhuizen might need to have a bit of a tussle in training to see who is faster, have a one-on-one race.

“There are some quick lads in the squad and Emil is now one of them.

“He’s a good lad and settled in quickly when he came in a few days ago.

“His English is very good – probably better than mine – and being away with us Brentford will have helped.

“The night before we played Brentford, Emil sang his initiation song and he wasn’t shy doing that – he really gave it a good go.

“It’s been said before but we are an easy squad for any new player to join, we make people feel welcome.”

Maguire was on target with North End’s fourth goal at Brentford, meeting Ben Davies’ header on the edge of the six-yard box to fire home.

That got the Irishman up and running for the season in the Championship, adding to his goal in the Carabao Cup first-round win over Mansfield at the end of August.

PNE scored four goals in quick succession in the second half to turn the game on its head after Brentford had led 2-0 .

Said Maguire: “To score four goals away from home was very pleasing.

“When we got it back to 2-2 and before they kicked-off, we were shouting to one another that we could go on and win it, their heads were down.

“I felt that every time we attacked we looked like scoring.

“Four goals in 18 minutes wasn’t it? That is good going.

“When I scored the fourth goal we didn’t let up, there were a couple more chances after that.

“Had we gone on to score a fifth goal, I don’t think it would have come as a surprise.

“Now we can rest up and get ourselves ready to play Cardiff on Sunday week.

“After some good results on the road we need to get back to doing well at Deepdale.

“If we can do that we will get into a good position and push on.”