Emil Riis admitted he’s missed the feeling of scoring after he opened his account for the 2022/23 season in the 1-0 victory over Coventry City.
Preston North End continued their unbeaten start to the league campaign with victory over the Sky Blues, courtesy of the Dane’s 73rd-minute strike after he’d come on as a substitute just seven minutes earlier.
There has been speculation over the 24-year-old’s future over the past week or so, but he is ready to keep his head down and continue life at PNE.
“I’ve been missing that feeling so it’s great to finally do it again,” Emil told iFollow PNE.
“It’s definitely been tough because I haven’t been playing as well so to not play and have all the speculation going on around you is not easy.
“But now it’s settled, I’m staying here so I’m happy to keep my head down to hopefully keep going from last season.”
Having netted 21 in all competitions last term, he has high targets to reach, but he was visibly delighted to have got his first of the campaign on Wednesday evening.
While the victory made it seven without a defeat for North End, there has been frustration in certain games that draws were taken rather than wins, however Emil feels the three points have been on their way.
He said: “It’s been coming for a while now so everyone’s very happy and I think we’ve deserved it for a while now so everyone’s happy we finally got it.
“In some of the games I think we really deserved to win, in some of them we haven’t that much, but it’s been coming for a while and one goal would have been enough every time so to finally get it is very good.”
Defensively, it has been a quite remarkable start to the season, with Ryan Lowe’s men still yet to concede in league action.
That is unsurprisingly a new record, having become the only side in PNE history to achieve that feat.
“It’s amazing,” added Emil. “As a striker you only need one goal to score so to have a defence you can trust like that behind you is amazing and fully deserved.
“We just need to keep going, we haven’t lost yet so we just need to keep pushing and try to get a couple more wins so we can get higher up in the table.”
Watch Emil's full interview on iFollow PNE.