Rangers: ‘Familiar foes Malmo are ultimate Scottish bogey team’

Malmo’s main man is number nine Isaac Kiese Thelin, who has just returned from injury. He has scored 14 this season and the Sweden international got back to scoring ways as they rattled four unanswered goals past 2022 champions Hacken in their most recent match.

So too did Erik Botheim, a forward who came through the Norwegian youth system with international colleague Erling Haaland, now of course of Manchester City, while their Danish captain, Anders Christiansen, helped himself to a double.

Sweden Under-21s winger Hugo Bolin is having a fine season, while at the back, former Leeds United centre-back Pontus Jansen faces Rangers again having taken part in those games 13 years ago during his first spell at the club.

He normally has another extremely experienced player in Jens Stryger-Larsen beside him at right-back. The 33-year-old played all six games for Denmark on their way to the semi-finals of Euro 2020.

Coach Henrik Rydstrom has improved the club’s fortunes after they failed to qualify for Europe in 2022 with a disappointing seventh-placed finish.

This term has been relatively seamless, though.

They have won 10 of their 11 home league games and are pretty miserly defensively, having conceded just 19 goals in their 26 Allsvenskan outings, the vast majority of which have come on the road.

Rydstrom’s only real disappointment was their Champions League play-off defeat by Sparta Prague, which may offer Rangers a more realistic sense of where Malmo are in European terms.

And there is little doubt that this is Rangers’ most winnable away fixture out of the four they were handed for the new-look Europa League with games at Nice, Olympiakos and Manchester United to come.

McCoist will be back in the stadium for this one, only this time, possibly, without the cold sweat.