Nottingham
Forest
  9th
January
1999
Score
 0 - 4
 Venue:
Highfield Rd

 Attendance:
17,172

 Referee:
Mr Peter Jones

 Goal 1:
Huckerby (44min)

 Goal 2:
Huckerby (46min)

 Goal 3:
Telfer (60 min)

 Goal 4:
Huckerby (82 min)

 		 
Coventry City
   
Beasant     Hedman
Lyttle     Nilsson
Armstrong Burrows
Chettle   Williams
Hjelde     Shaw
Doig     Huckerby
Johnson   Whelan
Bart-Williams McAllister
Gemmill Telfer
Stone     Soltvedt
van Hooijdonk     Aloisi
Substitutes     Substitutes
Crossley   Shilton
Woan Quinn
Quashie   Ogrizovic
Williams     Breen
Freedman   Jackson
© Nottingham Forest 1999
Nobody could blame Mickey Adams for stamping his mark on the side he put out today. It may be his only match in charge. And quite often teams do well in the first match after a manager leaves. He brought Des Lyttle in at right back and the young Doig made his first start in defence. Stone was given a free reign and PvH played alone up front. Even Ian Woan had a place on the bench. But apart from two free kicks from PvH Forest had no shots on goal in the first half. Coventry's first chance came from Huckerby when, on 33mins, he hit the post and was unlucky not to score. Forest escaped again soon after, with Hooijdonk making the clearance. The first goal came in injury time of the first half when Gemmill fell over (I'm saying nothing!)and Huckerby picked up the ball and had plenty of room to drive it into the far corner. Coventry deserved to go in at half time with the lead. They had dominated more and more as the match went on. No sooner had the teams lined up for the second half when Huckerby (yes, him again) caught Forest asleep and found himself alone in front of the goalmouth. Beasant must have suffered a brief error of judgement as he made no effort to save and the second went in. The third goal was made easy as, with not a red shirt in sight, Telfer put the ball away on 60mins. Forest were making Coventry look like a class side, not like fellow strugglers in the Premiership. Huckerby's hat trick (his second in two games)was somehow inevitable and came on 82 minutes. It was by far his best goal, beating all three defenders easily and then beating Beasant as well. Forest's performance was nothing less than embarrassing and the final whistle could not come soon enough. We can only hope that Ron Atkinson doesn't change his mind, because avoiding relegation now will require something more of a miracle than he or anyone else can provide. With Stone on a suspension for the next home game against Arsenal things cannot get much worse, or can they?