Injuries have had a huge impact on Mikkel Damsgaard’s career since he burst onto the scene at Euro 2020, but patience and hard work have seen him become one of the Premier League‘s most impressive players this season.
They say you should never judge a player on an international tournament.
At Euro 2020 – played in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – Denmark surprised many by reaching the semi-finals, and looked on course to go one better when Mikkel Damsgaard bent a sumptuous free-kick past England’s Jordan Pickford at Wembley Stadium to give his side the lead.
Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesThe Three Lions had other ideas, but Damsgaard’s name had been on many people’s lips after his performances that summer. He was more than just his impressive Euro 2020, though.
Damsgaard came through at FC Nordsjælland, impressing in the 2019-20 season when he recorded 10 goals and six assists in 35 Danish Superligaen games, playing in the same team as Mohammed Kudus and Kamaldeen Sulemana.
That attracted Sampdoria, who brought Damsgaard to Serie A in the summer of 2020. He split his time between starting and coming off the bench, with 18 of his 35 Serie A appearances in 2020-21 being starts. He scored just two goals but only Antonio Candreva (eight) managed more assists for Sampdoria than his four that season.
Then came Euro 2020, which was a wild mixture of emotions for Denmark and Damsgaard. When Christian Eriksen collapsed in the Danes’ opening game with Finland, the world held its breath. Thankfully, not only did Eriksen survive the cardiac arrest he suffered, but he also returned to play football at the highest level.
His absence for the remainder of the tournament was bittersweet for Damsgaard, though, with the 20-year-old coming into the team to replace his idol.
“[Eriksen] is one of the players I have watched the most. I really looked up to him when I was younger and played more like a number 10, just like him,” Damsgaard told Danish news agency Ritzau at the time.
“I have found a lot of inspiration and looked at many of the details in his game and the space that he finds. I tried to include that in my game from a really young age. And then it has been incredible to be part of the national team and see at close quarters how he trains.”
Damsgaard justified his selection, scoring an excellent goal in the 4-1 thrashing of Russia, before providing an assist in the last-16 win over Wales. His free-kick against England then thrust him further into the spotlight, but that didn’t result in an immediate big-money move away from Sampdoria as many expected.
He was linked with Milan, Barcelona and Tottenham among others, but he stayed with Samp. However, just a couple of months into the 2021-22 season, Damsgaard required knee surgery, which revealed the player had been suffering with rheumatoid arthritis. That kept him out of action for six months. He managed just 12 appearances that campaign, and not a single goal or assist.
However, Damsgaard made the move to Brentford in August 2022 for a reported fee of £12 million. Again, he had the chance to show he could be an adequate replacement for Eriksen as the former Tottenham man had just joined Manchester United following a six-month spell with the Bees in his comeback to elite football.
Brentford felt they had done their homework and knew they needed to be patient with him in his first season due to the previous campaign’s issues. Damsgaard still made 29 appearances in all competitions, 12 of which were starts, but his only goal involvement was an assist against Gillingham in the EFL Cup.
He wasn’t written off as a flop, though, and Thomas Frank was seemingly preparing him to be back to full power in 2023-24.
A further setback led to more time out, however, and yet more recovery time. He suffered an adductor injury playing for Brentford’s U21 side in August 2023 and then required minor knee surgery again a month later. By the time he returned in the December, he needed to work his way back up to full strength again.
Damsgaard made 25 appearances in all competitions for Brentford in 2023-24, nine of which were starts, and his only two goal involvements were Premier League assists against West Ham and Aston Villa.
This season, finally, Damsgaard has been unleashed, and that patience is paying off for the Bees.
He has already played more Premier League minutes this season (1,888) than he did in his previous two campaigns put together (1,815) and is producing around twice as many chances. Damsgaard averages 2.1 chances created per 90, and 1.7 from open play, compared to his previous high of last season (1.1 chances created, 0.9 from open play).
He scored his first competitive goal since that free-kick at Wembley three years prior in a 3-1 EFL Cup win over Leyton Orient in September. He followed that up with his first Premier League goal in Brentford’s 3-2 win over Bournemouth in November, before finding the net again in the 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa a month later.
After recording just two assists in 49 Premier League appearances in his first two campaigns – though only 16 had been starts – Damsgaard has stepped up in a significant way this season with eight assists in 25 games (22 starts).
He has more than twice as many assists as any other Brentford player (Vitaly Janelt and Bryan Mbeumo – three each), and only Mohamed Salah (14), Bukayo Saka and Antonee Robinson (both 10) have more than him in the entire Premier League.
Just 10 players have created more than his 35 chances from open play this season, and only seven have made more than his 106 progressive passes – completed open-play passes in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that move the ball at least 25% closer to the goal. He also ranks third behind Bruno Guimarães and Martin Ødegaard for successful through balls (8), too.
Mbeumo has been Brentford’s standout player this season, with 14 goals and three assists in the Premier League, but he is the only player at the club to have played a part in more attacking sequences in open play than Damsgaard, who is even ahead of 11-goal Yoane Wissa, albeit from 130 more minutes.
The striking thing about Damsgaard’s numbers this season is how well-rounded they show him to be. For example, he is the only Premier League player this season to have provided 5+ assists (8), created 40+ chances (41), attempted 150+ passes into the final third (152), attempted 50+ tackles (55) and won 120+ duels (120).
You can also see from his touch-zone map below in the Premier League this season that he spreads his touches of the ball fairly evenly across the pitch, trying to have as broad an influence as possible rather than just sticking to one area.
His work rate is another reason why his injury issues have been so frustrating for him. Damsgaard wants to outwork everyone, to chase, harry and win the ball back for his team, before creating something with it.
With his improved fitness levels, he is doing just that. Only Crystal Palace’s Ismaïla Sarr (689) has tallied more than Damsgaard’s 685 total pressures – when a player on the defending team approaches the player in possession with the aim of either winning back the ball or limiting their passing options. That’s 155 pressures more than any of his teammates (Mbeumo – 530), and is particularly impressive when you consider Brentford have made the fourth fewest total pressures of all 20 teams in the Premier League this season (3,993).
It’s not just chasing people. He wins the ball, too. Only nine players in the Premier League have won possession more often than Damsgaard’s 108 times, with centre-back Nathan Collins (112) the sole Brentford player to have done so.
Damsgaard might not be capturing the headlines like he did at Euro 2020, but after years of injury agony, he is proving to be a vital part of Frank’s side and becoming every bit as important to them as Eriksen was during his brief spell at Brentford, if not more.
Damsgaard signed a new deal in January that ties him to the club until 2030. Frank told the club’s website: “This season, he is starting to show what we believed we’d get from him. We knew that wouldn’t happen straight away because of the time he was out before he came here, but it ended up being longer than expected – both for him and us.
“Mikkel was then unlucky with another injury but, after two years of relatively consistent training and a good environment – and with patience both ways – we are now seeing the fruit of the work.
“He has been one of our best players this season; we are very dangerous when he is playing… but there is more to come from Mikkel.”
There is plenty coming from Mikkel already. His comeback from injury has been impressive enough. If he can continue this upward trajectory, perhaps all that hype from Euro 2020 will return.
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