Rangers: Anders Christiansen inspires Europa League hosts Malmö

Malmö head coach Henrik Rydstrom praised Anders Christiansen after the recovered captain scored a brace in a 4-0 win over Hacken, extending their winning streak to four games ahead of Thursday's Europa League opener at home to Rangers.

The 34-year-old midfielder scored the first two goals on his return from injury on Sunday before being taken off after 56 minutes as Malmö extended their lead at the top of Sweden's Allsvenskan to 11 points.

“Anders is brilliant in the decisive moments,” Rydstrom said on the reigning champion's website. “He scores in situations where others don't.”

Christiansen only needed six minutes to make an impression: he hit the bottom corner from a long distance and shortly after the break he slammed a shot from 13.6 metres into the top corner.

Isaac Kiese Thelin headed the third goal after 80 minutes, and fellow striker Erik Botheim scored another goal three minutes later after coming on as a substitute.

Rydstrom played down the second 4-0 home win in a row and stressed that there were “narrow differences”. His team had been too cautious in the first half. He stressed: “It's not like we were smashing heels, but in the decisive moments we were better.”

“It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm of all the players. We scored a lot of goals, even though our strikers didn't score any, but it was incredibly beautiful that they both found the net.”

Rydstrom made six changes to his team following the 0-0 draw with GAIS in Gothenburg during the week. Johan Dahlin also returned to the starting line-up, despite the coach praising Ricardo Friedrich while the first-choice goalkeeper was given a rest.

Swedish striker Thelin also returned from injury, while former Manchester City youth team centre-back Colin Rosler, Peruvian international Sergio Pena and fellow midfielder Hugo Bolin also joined the team.

New Norwegian international Botheim, Otto Rosengren, the midfielder who recently made his debut for Sweden, 19-year-old centre-back Nils Zatterström and Taha Aliy were on the bench, and another winger, Sören Rieks, was missing.

Malmö are unbeaten since losing 2-0 at home and away to Sparta Prague in the Champions League play-off and consolidated their place at the top of the domestic table after Djurgardens lost 3-0 away to GAIS.