Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte has opened the door to Christian Eriksen re-joining the club should his short-term deal at Brentford be successful.
Eriksen is close to completing a remarkable return to football after he signed for Brentford seven months on from suffering a cardiac arrest on the pitch at Euro 2020.
The Denmark international has been fitted with a implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) device and joined Brentford on January deadline day after he was unable to continue playing for Inter Milan in Italy, where he previously worked under Conte as they won the Serie A title.
Serie A rules did not allow Eriksen to play with the ICD device in Italy but his move to Brentford went through after he passed a lengthy medical. The midfielder has taken part in training as he nears a return to the Premier League, where he spent seven seasons with Spurs before joining Inter in 2020.
Conte, who met Eriksen by chance last weekend when they ended by staying in the same hotel, said a move back to Tottenham would be a “good opportunity” for all parties and he had not considered moving for the 29-year-old on deadline day as he did not think he was ready to return to football.
“Honestly I was surprised about the situation because in my mind, I thought Christian needed more time before coming back to play in England,” Conte said.
“For sure, Eriksen is part of Tottenham's story. To come back here would be a good opportunity for him, for me, for the club. But now he's signed for Brentford, only six months, and we'll see what happens.
“I was lucky because I met him on Sunday and it was good to speak with him. I saw him with his family and it was good. I'm the first person to be happy to see him again on the pitch because we spent a really good time at Inter Milan together.
“We won the league, we spent two important seasons together. I wish him all the best for the future. And you don't know what will happen. It would be good for me to have him again, to work together.”
Eriksen made 305 appearances for Tottenham across seven seasons at the Premier League club. He was Spurs’ player of the year in 2014 and 2017, made the PFA team of the year in 2017-18 and was part of the Tottenham side that reached the Champions League final in 2019.
Eriksen’s last appearance came at the Euro 2020 finals in June when the Denmark international collapsed on the pitch during the group stage match against Finland in Copenhagen. Eriksen required life-saving treatment on the pitch and later revealed that he had died “for five minutes”.
He is targeting a return to football in order to make the Denmark squad for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
