Back Rangers to bounce back to winning ways in Friday's TV clash at the Caledonian Stadium.
Inverness v Rangers – Friday 19:45, BT Sport 1
Inverness could only manage a 1-1 draw with Hearts after taking an early lead last time out, and they remain rooted to the bottom of the Scottish Premiership ladder. This weekend they host Rangers, who sit third on 43 points, six behind second-placed Aberdeen. While the league title is way out of reach given how Celtic are playing, Rangers will feel that emphatic wins over teams like Inverness are necessary if they are to challenge Aberdeen for second place.
Inverness are without a win in 13 games and have lost 1-0 twice to Rangers already this season, so they will be at a low ebb coming into this one. This is especially true given that they’ve gone LDLDL in their last five at home against top-half sides even excluding Celtic. Furthermore, Rangers’ loss to Dundee at the weekend was the first time they’d lost to a bottom-half side away this season – prior to that they had gone W4-D2-L0 against such sides and that result actually moved Dundee into the top half. However, they’ve only won once in their last four matches, and have hardly convinced on the road this season as they’ve lost as many games as they’ve won (W5-D3-L5).
Nevertheless we think Rangers will bounce back against the league’s weakest team, but it won’t be convincing. They’ve not scored more than twice in an away game all season and four of their five trips to the current bottom five have had fewer than three goals, so Rangers/Under 2.5 looks like a big price at 4.5.
