Prior to Rangers’ Europa League match against Malmo, head coach Henrik Rydstrom revealed his strategy for taking down Philippe Clement’s squad.
The manager stated that Malmo had intended to play their own game against Rangers, avoiding getting drawn into a fight by a visiting team eager to break their rhythm and hit them in transition.
But all of Rydstrom’s well-laid tactics went out the window when Nedim Bajrami opened the score within a minute—the Albanian likes to start fast, as Italy found out during Euro 2024.
With Malmo joining an excellent group of European scouts, Rangers have won five of their previous six games and kept five clean sheets. Ross McCausland’s game-winning goal came off the bench.
And Rydstrom can trace a terrible Malmo showing all the way back to Gabriel Busanello’s missed backpass with just under fifty seconds remaining in the game. His team may have been fortunate not to lose by an even wider margin after Vaclav Cerny and Cyriel Dessers wasted good chances in one-on-one scenarios.
As Rangers defeat Malmo in the Europa League, Cyriel Dessers excels.
At the conclusion of the game, a frustrated Rydstrom angrily said in his post-match press conference, “I’ve tried to get the players to understand that we shouldn’t play back to the custodian. It’s a problem we’ve had for a damn long time.”
“Our playmakers are not the goalkeepers. We have to move forward. Although [Busanello] is an excellent player, that kind of set the tone negatively, and we kept doing that.
You can talk about whether or not I’m a dumb coach. because I gave them a strategy to follow. Indeed, most likely foolish.
Clearly, Rydstrom is a little out of it due to the magnitude of the loss.
The Malmo manager also emphasised the part that a well-prepared Dessers played in the proceedings. That mistake by Busanello was picked up by the Nigerian international, who then circled the custodian and struck the post before Bajrami grabbed the rebound.
Former Rangers player Andy Halliday praised Dessers’ midweek link-play. And in this performance as well, the former Feyenoord player shone with his back to goal. One exquisite flick set up a counterattacking opportunity that the unimpressive Cerny wasted.
Furthermore, Rydstrom believes Malmo found it difficult to handle the Rangers’ tenacity and aggression. In midfield, Connor Barron and Mohamed Diomande shone thanks to the fierce hold-up play of an inspired Dessers up top.
The midfield duel was won by Mohamed Diomande and Connor Barron.
“We have to admit that our behaviour in the first half of the game was below par. It was also a defensive issue since too many guys were hiding. The Swedish league champion for 2023 claims that “we didn’t push hard enough.”
“We anticipated that they would fight for second balls and play over our pressure, and that’s where they won the game.” They won duels, hit long, and then had excellent opportunities. In those circumstances, we were fortunate that they did not score the second goal. When we defended, we were under pressure.
“I’m quite unhappy at the way we behaved.
Rydstrom continues, “We pushed hard just like against Hacken,” alluding to Malmo’s 4-0 thumping of their Allsvenskan rivals on Sunday. However, Hacken lacked a striker capable of receiving the ball.
“After he [Dessers] managed to link the play, we were completely destroyed in midfield.”
With more challenging matches ahead, including matches against Lyon, Olympiakos, Nice, and Manchester United, the three points earned in Sweden may seem even more significant in retrospect.
Even though he was unable to add to his record of seven goals in nine games in Sweden, Dessers is currently playing some of his best football of his life.
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