Preston North End 2-1 Middlesbrough: Emil Riis scores winner for Lilywhites

Emil Riis came off the bench to make it two wins on the bounce for Preston as they beat Middlesbrough 2-1 in the Sky Bet Championship.

The 26-year-old capitalised on a defensive horror show from the visitors in the 78th minute to score his eighth goal of the season and send the home fans wild.

Stefan Thordarson had opened the scoring in the 28th minute before Delano Burgzorg's 52nd-minute equaliser.

Middlesbrough have now won just one of their last six away matches, leaving Michael Carrick looking over his shoulder at those trying to push for a play-off spot.

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Boro started brightly but were dealt a huge blow in the 11th minute as Emmanuel Latte Lath hobbled off after an awkward landing, with Marcus Forss coming on in his place.

The immediate reaction to that was almost the perfect tonic from Michael Carrick's man as they twice nearly took the lead with Freddie Woodman and Lewis Gibson doing well to block efforts from Burgzorg and Hayden Hackney respectively.

Preston battled back and Mads Frokjaer called Tom Glover into routine action with a tame 14th-minute drive from range, but Woodman had to be far more acrobatic shortly after, dropping low to palm Ben Doak's cross-cum-shot to safety.

The Lilywhites had largely been second best yet took the lead on the counter attack as Thordarson stormed onto a header forward from Milutin Osmajic before shifting into the box and curling the ball beyond Glover's reach.

Boro started the second half well though and were soon on level terms as Ben Doak took out the Preston backline with a sublime first-time pass on the swivel and Burgzorg had all the time in the world to steady himself and slot home the equaliser.

Doak was starting to find his feet and, shortly after the goal, he had Woodman scrambling across the goal to turn his bending 25-yard strike around the post just minutes before the Preston stopper's excellent reaction save to push Forss' angled shot over the bar.

Middlesbrough were purring at this point and Gibson had to continue his brave display at the centre of the Preston defence with vital blocks against Forss and Finn Azaz just after the hour mark.

It was all one-way traffic but Paul Heckingbottom's introduction of Riis helped to swing the pendulum back his team's way in bizarre fashion.

The Teesiders only had themselves to blame as Riis' initial shot was saved by Glover, but the defence collectively made a complete hash of clearing the ball, allowing Frokajer to tee the Dane once again, and he rifled the winner into the far corner from 10 yards.

The managers

Preston's Paul Heckingbottom:

"The groans are ridiculous when [Osmajic] is running himself into the ground game after game and we've got [Riis] who's scored that many goals on the bench.

"We want to be an intense, aggressive team and our subs were fantastic today and one of the reasons they were fantastic is that they mean we can keep our intensity levels as a group so that our levels don't drop and make it easy for the opposition.

"When people's physicals do drop, we expect our subs to come on and raise the physical intensity of the game."

Middlesbrough's Michael Carrick:

"It was a team moment. Their goalkeeper's got the ball and we've just let him go through the middle of the pitch and obviously the ending is not nice to watch.

"It's not a good watch at all. We've shot ourselves in the foot from being in a position where all we could see was another goal coming our way.

"These are the lessons we have to learn and we've got to keep doing something about it or we'll keep being in the position that we're in.

"We were good at a lot of things for a lot of the game. We started ever so well and defended really well at times but it's just the drop out in a couple of moments.

"We were shooting ourselves in the foot from nowhere and the boys are devastated. I'm devastated. It's a horrible day to be sitting here with nothing."

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