Rangers open Europa League campaign with win over Malmo in Sweden

Rangers have made a winning start to their Europa League campaign with a victory over Malmo in Sweden.

Goals from Nedim Bajrami and Ross McCausland secured a 2-0 win and all three-points for Philippe Clement’s men in the first of their eight league phase games.

It is also their first ever win in Sweden and against a team who knocked them out of Europe in the last two meetings between the sides.

Bajrami opened the scoring on his European debut for the club when he found the net in the first minute of the game.

And McCausland’s strike off the post and in with 15 minutes to go sealed a win, more comfortable than the scoreline suggests, on a night when they could and probably should have scored more after creating a string of good chances and Jack Butland not having a single shot on target to save.

Rangers got off to the best possible start when a wayward backpass was seized upon by Cyriel Dessers who rounded the keeper before hitting the post, but Bajrami was in the right place to put the ball into the open goal and make it 1-0 with only sixty seconds gone.

It was the Albania international’s first goal in second start since joining late last month, and he won’t get any much easier than that.

Malmo had the ball in the net on the 15th minute mark but the goal was ruled out for offside and the visitors remained in front.

Rangers would probably have felt they could have at least doubled their lead in the first-half with good chances falling to Vaclav Cerny, Dessers and Bajrami.

Cerny should have scored when he was put through one-on-one with the keeper but his shot was well wide of the post.

The Malmo defence was cut open again at the end of the first 45 and the ball fell to Bajrami in the box but he was too unselfish and tried to cut it back to Dessers rather than taking a shot himself and the ball was cleared.

In all honesty Rangers should have been further ahead going into the second-half but were still a goal to the good at the break.

The Swedish side came out of the traps quickest after half-time and put the Rangers backline under a period of pressure in the early stages as they pushed for an equaliser.

However, Clement’s side continued to look dangerous on the counter attack and Tom Lawrence had a sight of goal on the hour-mark but fired his shot over the bar.

Malmo had good spells of possession without troubling Butland but Rangers continued to look the more dangerous in attack and Dessers had another good chance after bursting past the defence and on to a through ball, but he failed to hit the target and the score stayed at 1-0 going into the last 20 minutes.

They eventually got their well-deserved second goal when substitute McCausland picked up the ball at the edge of the area and fired it past Johan Dahlin to make it 2-0.

On another night it could have been a cricket score such was the volume of good chances created by Rangers but Clement and the travelling support will be happy enough to kick-off their campaign with a win and impressive performance at a potentially tricky place to go.