Mikkel Damsgaard’s first two seasons at Brentford did not go according to plan. The attacking midfielder made 49 appearances in the Premier League out of a possible 75, 16 of them starts, and registered a grand total of two assists without scoring a single goal.
It was an underwhelming return from a player who grabbed everybody’s attention in the summer of 2021 with his excellent performances for Denmark at the pandemic-delayed European Championship.
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Damsgaard was directly involved in three goals in five appearances, including a stunning free kick to take the lead in a semi-final against England. He celebrated his 21st birthday during that tournament, on the day Denmark beat the Czech Republic 2-1 in the quarter-finals, and it seemed like he had a bright future.
That is a simply stunning free-kick from Mikkel Damsgaard! 💥😱 #ENGDEN | #ITVFootball | #Euro2020 pic.twitter.com/0mkPNI9v5m
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) July 7, 2021
But Damsgaard struggled with injuries the following season and doctors discovered he had a form of arthritis. He only made 12 appearances, six of them starts, in all competitions for Italian side Sampdoria, then joined Brentford in August 2022, a game into the new season, for an initial €14million (£11.8m/$14.3m at current exchange rates) on a five-year contract.
He arrived in west London a few weeks after his countryman and fellow midfielder Christian Eriksen had turned down a lucrative contract offer to stay at Brentford, who gave him a route back into football earlier that year after his on-pitch cardiac arrest during the Euros forced him to leave Italian club Inter, and joined Manchester United.
It has taken two-and-a-half years, but Damsgaard is finally demonstrating that he possesses the quality to replace Eriksen.
“I thought Damsgaard was unbelievable today,” Brentford head coach and fellow Dane Thomas Frank said after their 4-1 win against Leicester City in November. “I am so pleased he is shining as well. I think his two passes for the third goal and the first goal are of the highest international level. I think he is in a very good place and I think he is a big reason why we are creating so many chances.”
Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa have been exceptional for Brentford this season.
Mbeumo is joint-third, with Cole Palmer of Chelsea and Newcastle’s Alexander Isak, for most goals scored in the Premier League with 13 — only Manchester City’s Erling Haaland (16) and Mohamed Salah (18) of Liverpool have more. Wissa has been directly involved in 12 goals (scoring 10 with two assists) and is two away from overtaking Ivan Toney (36) as Brentford’s record goalscorer in the Premier League.
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Damsgaard’s contributions have not attracted the same level of attention but have been equally important.
The now 24-year-old endured a slow start to his third season in England but in his past 14 appearances has scored twice and recorded seven assists — only Salah (13) and Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka (10) have registered more of the latter in the 2024-25 Premier League.
There were a few moments during those first two years with Brentford where Damsgaard showed glimpses of his quality and Frank described his performance in a 3-2 win against Fulham in March 2023 as “very promising”, yet he failed to kick on. The following month, he spoke about how difficult his recovery from being diagnosed with an arthritic condition had been.
“It was a relief to get back, but I didn’t feel myself,” he told Brentford’s website. “I’d lost a lot of weight so I was very skinny. I didn’t have the same speed and power in my legs. I was playing without pain, but I couldn’t move the way I wanted to and I didn’t have the confidence to try the same things. You want to be the same player you were before, but you can’t do that immediately. I had to be patient.
“Thomas Frank and (director of football) Phil Giles knew everything about my injury (when he was signed). They’d done their research, spoken to my physios and knew everything that was going on with me. The club knew I was still a long way from physically being able to play in the Premier League, so from their side it was a little bit of an investment, if you can say that.
“They knew I was behind and had a lot of work to do, and I had thought that also, but this was the best place for me to develop, get some kilos on and get into the best shape possible. I could do that the fastest here, and the best here.”
Damsgaard suffered a setback in the September of his second season, keyhole surgery on his right knee causing him to miss 12 of Brentford’s opening 14 league games. Once fit again, he impressed in a 3-3 draw with Aston Villa last April but it felt like his small, lightweight frame was constantly being pushed around by bigger opponents. There were lots of occasions where he lacked the physical strength to hold off defenders or the speed to evade their challenges.
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“Some other managers would have given up, said, ‘That’s not gonna work’ and sold him,” says Brian Riemer, Frank’s former assistant at Brentford who is now head coach of Denmark’s national team. “But Thomas knows Mikkel is a quality player and he has worked with him, talked with him and now he’s getting the benefit. Things like that have always been, for me, the biggest strength of Thomas.”
During his time with boyhood club Nordsjaelland and two years at Sampdoria, Damsgaard predominantly played on the left but Brentford’s plan was to convert him into a central midfielder. It has been a slow process but they are now reaping the rewards. It feels like he has become their main playmaker, taking over from countryman Mathias Jensen.
“He is a flexible player,” Frank said this month, after Damsgaard set up Mbeumo to score the opening goal in a 3-1 defeat against Arsenal after intercepting Martin Odegaard’s pass. “We basically just need to find him — give the best player the ball. So we need to find positions where he can get on the ball to try to create things, either by passes or driving through with the ball. So he has a flexible role, no matter whether he starts from the left or the right or in a central role, as a 10 and a second striker.”
The graphic below shows that Damsgaard regularly creates chances with his corner deliveries and is adept at sliding the ball into space for Brentford team-mates Mbeumo, Wissa, Kevin Schade and Keane Lewis-Potter to chase.
He is eighth in the Premier League for expected assists this season at 5.2, while only Palmer (15) has executed more through balls than his 14.
Damsgaard has the freedom to drift across the pitch but is spending more of his time in advanced positions on the left than in previous seasons, thriving in between the opposition’s midfield and defence.
He often lines up alongside Vitaly Janelt and Christian Norgaard, another international team-mate. Those two protect the defence, which means a lot of the chance creation burden falls on Damsgaard’s shoulders — 22.9 per cent of his passes this season have been progressive, the third-highest rate in the top flight after Georginio Rutter of Brighton and Arsenal’s Odegaard. It highlights his positivity on the ball.
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Damsgaard works hard out of possession and has set up multiple goals this season directly after making a tackle or interception. The best example of this came 10 days ago when he pinched the ball from Joe Aribo and released Schade for a one-on-one with goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale in the 5-0 victory against Southampton.
“We all know the first couple of seasons were tricky,” Frank said. “He came back from a year out, so the first one he just had to take time to get up to speed. The second year, he got the knee injury and was out for four months and then took time. Then we were in a messy run of games and didn’t perform that well, but he played some minutes and games.
“He had a good pre-season. I always liked him and knew what he was capable of. Then he just got the games he probably needed and had the fitness now, and also took on a lot of responsibility himself.
“The game where I thought he was really good was Nottingham Forest at home (on December 21). He was like, ‘Give me the ball and I will take care of this’ and I love that attitude. I’m pleased with where he is, and of course he wants more.”
(Top photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
