Rangers went into the second leg of their tie against Midtjylland with a comfortable 4-2 lead, but they didn’t want to crawl through to the next round and dominated 3-1.
After an excellent first leg in Denmark, Rangers had a commanding 4-2 lead over FC Midtjylland in their qualifying round of the Europa League. Leading by two goals along with the away goal advantage essentially gave Rangers a three-goal advantage as Midtjylland would’ve needed at least three goals to advance.
Rangers were not content to simply hold onto their already built lead, however, as they jumped out onto Midtjylland and took full control of the tie and never really looked back.
Midtjylland were the side who managed to threaten first but after a run they had a shot go just wide of the left post. For what it’s worth, I think that had the shot actually been on target Allan McGregor had the net covered.
But Rangers responded quickly and got on the board in just the 14th minute. Scott Arfield found Sheyi Ojo running to the end-line who then squared the ball to Alfredo Morelos. Morelos got the ball and calmly controlled it to dodge the defender and put it into the net.
The goal not only effectively ended the tie but put Morelos into the elite company of Rangers players with 10 or more goals in European play.
Rangers would strike again in the 39th minute with the same trio creating the goal. Scott Arfield made a brilliant run finished with great effort as he slid in to win control of his touch and then sent it up to Morelos.
Alfredo failed to control the ball effectively as he let it skip to the left, but he quickly chased it down and made a pass to Sheyi Ojo to return the earlier favor. Ojo confidently finished the look for his 4th goal of the season.
With the score at 2-0, the tie was over, but Rangers were not yet done.
Early in the second half, it was, once again, the same trio who connected in order to put the ball in the net.
In just the 49th minute, Sheyi Ojo rifled in a daisy cutter to Alfredo Morelos who powered the ball into the net on one quick touch.
Midtjylland would pull one back in the 72nd minute but the tie was already decided.
The match would finish 3-1 for Rangers which put Rangers through to the playoff round of Europa League qualifiers 7-3 on aggregate.
It marks an outright dominant performance over a really solid Danish side sandwiched around a dominant outing against Hibernian at Ibrox on Sunday. The past week has done away with all the worries that came out of the Progres/Kilmarnock opening where Rangers won but looked a bit flat.
Rangers will face Polish side Legia Warsaw in the playoff round.