Boyd and Cuellar give Rangers Euro boost

Kris Boyd opened the scoring within seconds of the kick-off and Carlos Cuellar sealed the win midway through the second half.

Celtic's win over Kilmarnock earlier in the day meant Rangers were under pressure to take all three points at Ibrox and remain within touching distance of their Old Firm rivals in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

Inverness had proved to be something of a bogey team last season, yielding just one point from a possible nine. In fact, the last time Rangers recorded victory over the Highlanders at home had been three years ago with the now-departed Dado Prso grabbing the winner.

That poor record against Caley Thistle had been remedied to an extent in the opening game of the season when Rangers ran out comfortable 3-0 winners.

Kevin Thomson - suspended for the clash with Barcelona - was sacrificed to make way for the now fully-fit Brahim Hemdani. Jean-Claude Darcheville was named on the bench having also recovered from injury.

While Rangers had disposed of Motherwell to book their place in the semi-final of the CIS Insurance Cup midweek, Inverness had suffered a 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Aberdeen and boss Craig Brewster made two changes. In came Ian Black and David Proctor, out went Barry Wilson and Don Cowie.

Rangers enjoyed a dream start to the game when they surged into the lead after less than a minute.

Nacho Novo was hauled down by Stuart McCaffrey just inside the Inverness half and pounced on the quick free-kick before feeding Boyd, who slotted home from 16 yards with his first touch of the ball.

DaMarcus Beasley then had the ball in the back of the net but the offside flag was already raised before he had even connected with Barry Ferguson's cross.

Rangers continued to push forward and David Weir saw a ferocious effort deflected just wide following a corner kick.

Inverness' chances had been limited to a Russell Duncan volley over the crossbar, before Lee McCulloch passed up an opportunity to double Rangers' advantage.

Sasa Papac flighted a long ball to the back post where Novo was waiting to nod into the path of McCulloch. He had time to tee up the shot but somehow blasted wide of the upright.

Novo tried his luck with a volley after collecting a long ball from goalkeeper Allan McGregor but the effort was smothered by Michael Fraser. Beasley then lashed into the side-netting on the stroke of half-time.

Boyd could have started the second half the way he had started the first, thanks to some good play from Novo, but, when the ball fell his way, he nodded just wide.

At the other end, Proctor released Graham Bayne into the box, who lobbed past the post as Caley Thistle tried to haul themselves back into the game.

There was then panic in the Rangers box when Weir knocked the ball past his own goalkeeper but Dennis Wyness failed to capitalise.

Rangers made a double switch on the hour, Novo and Boyd withdrawn for Daniel Cousin and Darcheville.

Darcheville had an immediate impact on the game when he set up Cuellar for a looping header at the back post as Rangers doubled their lead after 62 minutes.

Only the woodwork prevented Darcheville from grabbing a goal of his own when he threw himself in front of an Alan Hutton cross only for his header to rattle the crossbar.

Cousin then just failed to connect with a Beasley ball in front of goal as Rangers tried to put the game beyond their visitors.

In the end, they held on to make it two wins out of two against a team who had proved to be their trickiest opponents last term.