The Brentford shirt Christian Eriksen held up after stepping on to the club’s pitch had the word ‘Hollywood’ printed across the front, but nothing could have been less appropriate.

‘What is it? A big announcement or something?’ he said, grinning as the club presented him as their player. ‘Apparently I’ve come back. Now I’m going to retire as well! I’m done with this!’

An hour or so of conversation with him was full of levity and self-deprecation like this.

About how his new manager, Thomas Frank, had been too polite to say his first training session was best forgotten. About how fans need not worry about his heart because ‘I don’t do tackles’. About how his family will not be the only ones present when he finally returns to the field. ‘I think the whole world will be there,’ he predicted.

This appears to be Eriksen’s way of providing calm reassurance to those anxious about him stepping into the relentless environment of the Premier League for a side fighting to stay in it, after five straight defeats. Putting the minds of others at rest has become part of his daily life now.

When he met Frank on Sunday, ahead of an introduction to his new team-mates, Eriksen asked for the chance to address the squad. When that moment came, he stood up and told them not to hold back from challenges on him in training. 

‘Don’t go easy on me because if there was any concern I wouldn’t be here,’ said. ‘If there are any questions, you can always ask me.’

Eriksen’s conversations with his family sound like the toughest of all, though. One of the most striking observations the 29-year-old made was that his fiancée, Sabrina Kvist Jensen, felt anxiety on that fateful night in Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium in June which he, oblivious to what was happening, simply never knew. 

‘Obviously I have no pain from what has happened. I don’t feel the pain people are feeling towards me,’ he said.

The most emphatic medical reassurances mean he will be back, probably next month, though it will not be easy for his family in the small hours of the night before his first game. ‘They might have extra thoughts, but in the end I’m here and healthy and playing,’ he said.

The Eriksen talking here was not the one from his days at Tottenham, where his public talk was infrequent and not hugely expansive. He now seems an individual determined to grab what he can from his football gifts.

Frank described being struck by how Eriksen was repeatedly the first to pick up or kick a ball on Tuesday, after brief halts for tactical discussion. A few players lingered to work on set-pieces for the following night’s game against Manchester City. 

Eriksen wandered over to watch what they were doing. ‘He is just interested,’ Frank said. ‘He is bubbling around the place, loving the smell of the grass.’

He has decisions to make about what lies ahead. Like whether to wear padding around a defibrillator, fitted within his chest, which will restart his heart if there is another cardiac arrest. ‘Maybe I’ll play with (padding), maybe not. It depends how I feel.’

He has not seen YouTube footage of the Belgian Anthony Van Loo, whose defibrillator kicked in when he suffered cardiac trouble during a game for Roeselare at Schiervelde in 2009.

But he has had the benefit of conversations with former Manchester United man Daley Blind, a friend from his Ajax days, who has a device fitted to regulate his heart rhythm.

It is clear that returning to the country where he was integral to Tottenham’s peak Mauricio Pochettino years had not been part of his plans. But Brentford, a superb fit, will take him into their unique embrace. Hundreds of fans wearing Eriksen No 21 replica shirts were visible from a road bridge as the team bus set off for City this week.

Frank was on the phone to him in the early part of December, urging him to belong.

Eriksen landed in what he has described as a ‘Danish colony’, with the occasional sound of the Danish language at training sessions one of the joys. His compatriots Mathias Jensen and Christian Norgaard are also at the club.

The surreal past few weeks have included Antonio Conte, his former Inter Milan manager, being one of the first people he encountered in London. They are living in the same hotel.

Conte has floated the idea of re-signing Eriksen for Spurs if things work out well. Frank said he hoped there would be a queue — as it would have meant this move had gone well — but that perhaps Brentford would be ‘first in line’ if the player had a decision to make.

The individual in question wants no more than to be back on the field, fighting for a place in Denmark’s World Cup squad, which seemed a pipe dream a month back. He also wants to demonstrate that all need not be lost in football for a player who suffers a catastrophe like his.

‘With time it is definitely going to be about the football and not the guy who did something last summer,’ he said. ‘It will be about the next game. I can’t wait to get back to that.’