Christian Eriksen made an instant impact on his first start since his cardiac arrest – and there is plenty more to come. 

Seeing Eriksen’s name in a starting 11 again seemed remarkable enough given how close he came to death while playing for Denmark against Finland in June, but here he lasted a full 90 minutes for the first time since that day.

It is rare to see the warmth of fans for an opposition player that was witnessed here at times at Carrow Road, and he even received a hug in the heat of battle from Norwich defender Brandon Williams.

Thomas Frank, the Brentford manager, had asked his fellow Dane in the morning if he was ready to start after the player had been training hard and Eriksen rose to the challenge. 

His deliveries from corners – one from the left, one from the right – led to Brentford’s first two goals at Norwich, putting the visitors 2-0 up. It was a throwback to vintage Eriksen: the raised arm, and the classy, floated balls delivered straight into the danger area. 

The first of those led to chaos in the Norwich box, with Ivan Toney finishing. The second saw Norwich’s Ben Gibson’s raised boot strike  Pontus Jansson, conceding a penalty that Toney scored.

Jansson, the retired Sweden defender, is optimistic about the future with Eriksen – this victory ended an eight-game winless streak for Brentford – and thinks this is just a start.

“He will grow from here,” he said. “It was probably not his best performance in his life. But it was just enough for us to have him on the pitch. That makes all of us grow.”

Eriksen was a busy presence for Brentford, having some nice touches and showing composure while even cracking the odd smile. He did not look like a player who might have trouble readjusting to the English top flight. The likes of Toney and Bryan Mbeumo could soon have valuable, regular assistance behind them.

“Everyone likes and loves him and it helps us to have him here,” Jansson added. “We are so happy that he can play football first of all. He is such a nice guy and character – and he is a superstar, if you can say that, but he is one of us.”

Jansson admitted Brentford had “almost forgotten the feeling of winning a football game, and it is probably the best feeling in the world” but Norwich are sinking fast.

They have lost four league games in a row and are now 10 points behind Brentford.

Tim Krul, Norwich goalkeeper, said: “I truly believe we are a better team than Brentford but they were more clinical than us. We need to take it on the chin, we have 11 games left.

“Leicester have done it before. Eleven games is 33 points. We know we need to win five, maybe six out of those. 

“We are still playing a lot of teams around us. We need to drag Leeds in, we still have Newcastle, Brighton and Burnley [to play soon], but it is easier said than done because this was a game we expected to win.”

Ivan Toney makes amends with Brentford hat-trick against sorry Norwich

Ivan Toney revelled in scoring a hat-trick for Brentford as he kept moving on from his apology after being videoed bad-mouthing the club – and there was also an impressive display by the starting Christian Eriksen.

Toney, injury-affected recently, was back in the starting line-up for the first time in the league since he apologised in late-January after being filmed using an expletive about the club, posted on social media, while partying alongside a woman on holiday in Dubai. He kept his cool here to punish wasteful and ill-disciplined Norwich City in this six-pointer.