Thomas Frank was in understandably effusive kind after Brentford’s 4-0 win over Leicester Metropolis final Friday – and he reserved particular reward for his entrance 4 of Kevin Schade, Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Mikkel Damsgaard.First-half objectives from Wissa, Mbeumo and Christian Nørgaard gave the Bees a three-goal cushion on the break, earlier than Fabio Carvalho got here off the bench late on to safe a fourth straight Premier League away win.
No crew has strung collectively extra consecutive wins on the highway within the prime flight this time period and a scintillating displaying from Brentford owed a lot to their creator-in-chief Damsgaard, who reached double figures for Premier League assists at King Energy Stadium.
The Bees’ free-scoring trio of Mbeumo-Wissa-Schade has now hit 34 Premier League objectives this season – 72 per cent of the west Londoners’ present whole of 47 objectives – and Damsgaard’s high quality and imaginative and prescient within the closing third has performed an enormous half in that.
Wissa’s opener towards the Foxes on Friday was a superb instance of Damsgaard’s creativity in microcosm.
Discovered by Schade 5 yards exterior the hosts’ field, Damsgaard’s immaculate first contact evaded Boubakary Soumaré and his second dissected the Leicester backline for Wissa to snaffle his twelfth aim of the season, with the DR Congo striker levelling his best-ever tally in a Premier League marketing campaign within the course of.
The peerlessly scooped cross for Wissa (which Damsgaard admitted was meant for Schade!) marked one other defence-splitting help for Damsgaard in 2024/25 and the Dane at present tops the Premier League charts for assists from through-balls (4).
Damsgaard’s second help of the competition – and tenth of the season – was extra easy: the attacking midfielder changed into acres of house halfway in his opponent’s half earlier than feeding Mbeumo, who flashed a implausible shot previous Mads Hermansen within the Leicester aim.
Though he might have some solution to go to catch former Bee Christian Eriksen (77) because the Danish participant with probably the most assists in Premier League historical past, Damsgaard is presently one of the vital artistic gamers within the prime flight and it’s value wanting past his headline stats.
Vigorous and clever with the ball at his ft, Damsgaard has accomplished 36 profitable dribbles this season (=sixteenth within the prime tier), and his implausible distribution is additional underlined by the very fact he’s eighth within the prime flight for progressive passes with 163 and third for goal-creating actions (18) behind solely Mohamed Salah and Bukayo Saka (21 apiece).
Damsgaard’s sky-high output, by way of finish product, is made much more spectacular by his urge for food for the much less glamorous facet of the sport.
The 24-year-old’s high-energy urgent is clearly evidenced by the truth that he ranks second for tackles made within the attacking third with 18, and ranks first and second amongst Brentford gamers for passes blocked (25) and tackles gained (58) respectively.
In his post-match feedback, Damsgaard spoke of his need to be “the very best model of myself” and his delight at reaching the “superb” milestone of 10 Premier League assists – he’s definitely in the perfect type of his Brentford profession to this point.
With Damsgaard pulling the strings behind a trio of in-form forwards (and Igor Thiago to return), Brentford followers have each proper to solid their eyes up the Premier League desk – and back-to-back clear sheets counsel the Bees are in good condition at each ends of the pitch forward of Everton’s go to on Wednesday.