Wanderers 1, Coventry City 5. BY the time the final whistle sounded, a capacity crowd of 25,000 had almost evaporated; the magnificent new stadium just about half full only because the large Coventry contingent had stayed on to cheer a victory they could hardly believe.

The empty seats were a chilling warning of what's in store at the Reebok next season.

Wanderers are staring relegation in the face and, unless they can produce an escape act of almost Houdini proportions in their remaining 14 games, they are heading straight back to the Nationwide League...once again!

Until Saturday they clung onto the slender hope that their home form, which has been solid rather than spectacular, and a belief in their own ability could save their Premiership skins.

They'd taken just three points from their previous seven games yet they knew just one win could put a different complexion on things. But hope gave way to despair as confidence drained dramatically in a collapse more worrying and more depressing than any performance this season.

Looking good for the best part of an hour, they alarmingly caved in to a team that had previously scored only four goals in 11 away games.

One game was never going to decide who wins and who loses in the relegation stakes but the expressions on the faces of the players as they left the field - Wanderers' with heads bowed, Coventry's triumphant - suggested this was a landmark result for both clubs.

For Colin Todd it was a morale-shattering blow leaving even him - the ultra-positive character that he is - struggling to offer words of encouragement in its aftermath.

The manager was as stunned as anyone. He admitted the defeat had "knocked the stuffing" out of his team and gave an insight into his personal anguish when he described the closing stages as "the longest 25 minutes of my life!"

He'd looked a forlorn figure as he stood on the touchline, seeing a defence which had conceded only seven goals in 11 home games, submit pathetically in the face of one of the most predictable strikeforces in the country! He had every reason to criticise players who appeared to lose heart for the fight as first Darren Huckerby then Dion Dublin helped themselves to a brace apiece.

Stand-in skipper Scott Sellars spoke for the team as a whole when he confessed to being shellshocked by the result. "I was embarrassed at the end when we came off," he said.

Andy Todd, not the worst of the performers by a long chalk, accepted liability on behalf of a defence which had held its own before crumbling catastrophically once Coventry had taken the lead. "Everyone has a job to do," the manager's son acknowledged, "and ours is to stop goals, which we didn't do!"

But Todd Snr wasn't looking for scapegoats, collective or individual, and in an amazingly frank inquest, accepted full responsibility for the defeat.

"As manager of this club I will not blame the players for their performance!" he announced.

"I am responsible for what goes on on the park."

Specifically, the manager conceded he may have been wrong to leave globetrotting £2.5 million defender Mark Fish on the subs bench and felt more time could have been spent on the training ground practising the defence of Coventry's trademark set-plays.

Todd may be guilty on both counts but tactical mistakes alone don't account for the sudden loss of confidence, the shameful collapse and the individual mistakes that left Gordon Strachan noticeably embarrassed by the margin of victory.

The Sky Blues boss tried to avoid rubbing salt into already painful wounds but he was honest enough, when asked to assess his own team's display, to admit: "It might sound unfair to Bolton but our performance was nowhere near as good as those against Liverpool and Arsenal." It didn't have to be. That in itself is a damning indictment of the Wanderers display in a disgraceful final half hour and provides a clear indication of their Premiership prospects.

It leaves Todd and his troops desperately low on self-esteem as they begin the preparation for Saturday's trip to Old Trafford - a frightening prospect in itself since Manchester United can be expected to go out all-guns-blazing after back to back defeats!

Wanderers bounced back after their 5-0 hammering at Sheffield Wednesday in November to string together their best results sequence of the season - a draw at Leicester and successive home wins against Wimbledon and Newcastle - but they have an even bigger job on their hands to repair the damage this time.

They are in tatters defensively and continue to struggle in front of goal. The return of Gudni Bergsson and Alan Thompson after suspension offers scope for changes at the back and in midfield. But they need an injection of fresh talent, a marked restoration of confidence and more tactical awareness to turn this particular corner.

Wanderers have an expensively-assembled squad, tipped by many for a mid-table finish, but they have been continually outgunned - often by supposedly inferior opposition - and have reached the point where it is hard to see where their next win is coming from. Yet they need at last seven to stand any chance of surviving.

As things stand today, that is an unlikely prospect. How different it might have been had Per Frandsen's snapshot not struck Marcus Hedman's left hand post just seconds after Noel Whelan had cancelled out Wanderers 21st minute lead.

That Sellars tap-in after Frandsen's shot had bounced back off the other post (only the 10th goal in 12 games at the Reebok) was down to the power, pace and persistence of Nathan Blake who gave the Coventry defence as hard a time in the first half as Dublin gave Wanderers' in the second.

Blake would have had his ninth Premiership goal too had he been just a fraction closer to Neil Cox's cross in the 53rd minute when determined attacking and rousing support threatened to tip the survival scales.

The volume of the Reebok roar increased as Wanderers kept the pressure on but a Hedman goalkick brought a stunned silence on the home front. Dublin's deflection should have been dealt with by Chris Fairclough but the once-reliable defender managed only to nudge the ball into Huckerby's path and Keith Branagan was a beaten keeper.

Another Cox cross bounced tantalisingly across Hedman's goal with Bob Taylor a split-second too late to get the connection. But that was the limit of Wanderers' response. Coventry extended their lead three minutes later and the game was up.

Whelan's earlier equaliser had underlined the danger Paul Telfer posed with his corners and two more were to pay dividends. Huckerby cashed in first after Branagan had failed to hold Dublin's header then the young Geordie reciprocated, getting the flick-on, leaving his unmarked partner to nod in an easy finish.

The whole sorry show was summed up when Jimmy Phillips tried to cut out a George Boateng pass and succeeded only in skying the ball for Dublin to round off the scoring.

The boos at the end were justified. Few of the 13 had done themselves justice with their performances and, if Todd was to accept the blame, he had to accept the criticism.

With time and games running out, supporters fear the worst because the team and manager have left them no option.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.