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When ex-Derby footballer Mark O’Brien sat watching Christian Eriksen’s terrifying health scare live, it “frightened” the Irishman into turning his TV off.

O’Brien was preparing for his second open heart surgery which had forced him to quit the game when Eriksen went down at Euro 2020 last summer.

Now remarkably eight months after suffering a cardiac arrest playing for Denmark against Finland, Eriksen is back playing football.

The Dane made his debut for Brentford in the Premier League last weekend and is set to feature in Saturday's crunch clash at Norwich.

Former Rams, Luton and Newport defender O’Brien is thrilled to see Eriksen,30, back on the pitch.

But he just now hopes Eriksen’s footballing future is determined freely by the player himself and not forced upon him ill health.

Like Eriksen, O’Brien battled back to play pro football after a huge health scare when, as a teenager, a routine scan in 2009 picked up a defective heart valve which needed replacing.

The operation was successful to allow him to resume his career at Derby, where he went on to make 32 appearances after coming through the ranks.

But when the same valve needed replacing in 2020 it meant the end of O’Brien’s career at League Two Newport aged just 27.

O’Brien reflected: “I was at home in Ireland watching that exact match and