6 players you had no idea played under Thomas Frank: Hojbjerg, Elmander…

Nestor Watach • 13 Jun 2025

Tottenham’s new manager Thomas Frank has a proven track record of improving players. Bryan Mbeumo and Ivan Toney, in particular, have flourished under his management.

Frank has worked wonders to get Brentford up and established as a stable Premier League club. But what about those who worked under him before he’d proven himself as a top Premier League coach?

Here are six players you might not know played under Frank.

Daniel Agger

Brondby broke their transfer record to bring home their prodigal son in the summer of 2014.

Agger was still only 29 at the time and surely had plenty more to offer to his boyhood club after falling out of favour at Liverpool.

Unfortunately, his second stint didn’t quite go as planned. The no-nonsense centre-back struggled with injuries and retired after his two-year deal was through, while he evidently didn’t always see eye-to-eye with his coach.

“As a person I really liked Thomas Frank, but as a coach, he wasn’t the one I liked the most,” Daniel Agger told Ekstra Bladet in 2017.

“I am from the old school, where a football team has to be built around discipline and a hierarchy, but it wasn’t like that at all when I returned to Brondby.”

Johan Elmander

When was the last time you thought about the Bolton Wanderers cult hero? Treat yourself to rewatching his 2010 stunner against Wolves, one of the silkiest goals in Premier League history.

It was actually at Brondby where Elmander first caught the eye. The striker was named the club’s Player of the Season back in 2004-05 when they won a Danish league and cup double under Michael Laudrup.

After eight years in more high-profile European leagues, the Swede made a romantic return as a veteran while Frank was serving as Brondby’s manager in 2014.

But he wasn’t quite so prolific in his second stint and mustered just one league goal in 2014-15.

Khalid Boulahrouz

Another long-forgotten relic of the Barclays era.

It messes with our heads that former Netherlands international Boulahrouz signed for Jose Mourinho’s first Chelsea before going on to play under Frank.

It doesn’t feel like there should have been any overlap there.

The defender joined Brondby back in 2013 when Frank was making a name for himself in his first role in senior management. He was actually among the first signings of the Dane’s coaching career.

Boulahrouz’s one season under Frank wasn’t especially successful or memorable, though. Injury niggles denied him regular gametime and he quietly departed to see out the remainder of his career back in the Eredivisie with Feyenoord.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg

“I coached Hojbjerg for three years in the Danish youth teams. I said to him, when he was in the Under-17 national team, that he could be a world-class holding midfielder,” Frank said, back in 2021.

“On the ball his technical ability is extremely strong. He has a great first touch and a wide passing range. He is a very good passer, and he protects the ball well.

“He also has physicality and pace. He has the potential to be one of the best sitting midfielders in the Premier League.”

A young Hojbjerg was one of Frank’s most trusted lieutenants in the Danish youth set-up.

The midfielder featured prominently in the run to the semi-finals of the 2011 UEFA European Under-17 Championship, including in a 2-0 victory over an England side featuring future Three Lions stalwarts Raheem Sterling and Jordan Pickford.

There’ll be no reunion in North London, though. Hojbjerg has just completed a permanent move to Marseille after his loan away in 2024-25.

Christian Norgaard (Frank’s all-time most-used player), Christian Eriksen, Yussuf Poulsen and Andreas Christensen are among the other senior Denmark internationals whom Frank nurtured in youth football.

Teemu Pukki

You’ll probably associate Pukki most closely with Daniel Farke and that yo-yo Norwich City side of the turn of the decade.

But did you know that the Canaries scouted the Finnish striker at Frank’s Brondby? They signed him from the Danish Superliga outfit back in 2018.

Pukki scored 21 goals in 58 appearances under Frank and featured alongside Norgaard in Brondby’s 2018 Danish Cup final victory over Silkeborg, although by that point Frank was serving as an assistant coach at Brentford.

Ezri Konsa

Brentford finished mid-table in the Championship in Frank’s first season at the helm. He was promoted to the top job following the departure of head coach Dean Smith in October 2018.

Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma all hit double figures in the early Frank era, catching the eye at the old Griffin Park before moving on to the Premier League.

But a relatively lesser-known light of that forgettable campaign was a young Konsa, who had just been signed from Charlton for a £2.5million fee.

He spent just one year with the Bees and was swiftly snapped up by Aston Villa following their promotion to the Premier League.

Almost two hundred Premier League appearances and 11 caps for England later, he hasn’t looked back.

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