Whelan rolls on

CHELSEA'S surge brought a huge royal blue army into the Midlands yesterday, but their football, on a heavy churning pitch, did not live up to expectations. Ruud Gullit was rarely less than magical but his accomplices, alas, were well marked and rarely better than mundane.

Coventry just about deserved their victory, if only for their enterprise in fielding four attackers. But Chelsea left feeling they were worth a point and indeed might have had one if Gavin Peacock, three minutes from time, had been able to drill the ball past Steve Ogrizovic's gigantic body.

At the end of the first quarter, the smart money must have been on Chelsea: for all City's enthusiasm, Chelsea's sudden counter-attacks were the more penetrative and menacing. If Kevin Hitchcock was the busier goalkeeper, he was also the better defended.

Gullit does the simple and the obvious things but he does them quicker and much better than almost anyone else, and until a minute before the interval it seemed a certainty that sooner or later one of his weighted, meaningful passes would end up in the Sky Blues' net.

It was then that Kevin Richardson placed a short pass into the box for the hitherto invisible Noel Whelan to lift the ball casually over the onrushing Hitchcock. That made seven goals in 11 games since his pounds 2m transfer from Leeds, and these three points will be worth a crock of diamonds to Coventry.

Hitchcock had tipped a 30-yard effort from Peter Ndlovu on to his post in the first half and a minute into the second he made another superb save from the same player from less than 10 yards.

With Chelsea's poise gone and the full-blooded ovations they had been receiving barely audible, the inevitable regrouping took place and Dennis Wise appeared off the bench. Wise immediately played some tantilising triangles with Gullit and Dan Petrescu but no one was quite good enough inside the box to contrive a goal.

When Ndlovu departed 15 minutes from time, Coventry seemed to entrench themselves, but just as Chelsea started to enjoy the extra space, the Coventry substitute, Paul Williams, suddenly hit their crossbar with a thunderous attempt. Chelsea are interesting and improving but they remain a long way from the finished article.