In ascending order, the bottom of the Premiership this morning reads Sheffield Wednesday, Watford and Bradford. On the weekend when we turned the clocks back one hour, it was possible to cast the mind forward several months and envisage the relegation places remaining exactly the same.
Like Wednesday, Watford journeyed to the Midlands and leaked goals. A makeshift defence missing three of its important components was not built to deal with the likes of Robbie Keane when there is both a fizz and assuring confidence to his game.
"I would ask more than Stg£500,000 if someone wanted to buy him now," said Gordon Strachan in a jocular reference to Alex Ferguson's bizarre assertion, made at the time of Keane's move from Wolves earlier in the season, that it was all the 19-year-old was worth. "I believe Robbie can play in any league in the world, he has that much intelligence and ability."
Coventry's first goal was pure Keane, an instinctive volley despatched unerringly as the ball fell over his shoulder from the head of Cedric Roussel, a 20-year-old making his first Premiership start. The Irishman made it look so simple, but it was anything but.
Coventry needed that because much of their early play did not always have the benefit of careful thought and Watford looked the likelier to score. They strung together purposeful attacks, Charlie Miller placing his header just too high before Tommy Smith was unable to convert a pass from the same player.
It was a good 15 minutes or so for Miller, but for Keane it was an outstanding 90 minutes. His hunger for the ball was insatiable, his control when he got it mesmeric, and it was his pass to Steve Froggatt that prompted a weaving run and a right-foot finish that gave Coventry a two-goal advantage at the break.
Keane's performance came at the expense of Graham Taylor, the manager who introduced him to English football at the age of 14 when he was manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Taylor admitted: "He's a natural, a great goal scorer for a 19-year-old and a real special talent. He's very mature for his age."
A third successive Premiership home victory was no longer in doubt, all that needed to be resolved was the scale of Watford's defeat, their seventh in succession. They allowed Moustapha Hadji the room he required to club home the third, and conceded again to Gary McAllister's penalty - the second home fixture running that Coventry had hit four - when Steve Palmer handled under pressure from Keane.
COVENTRY: Hedman, Telfer, Shaw, Williams, Hall, Hadji, McAllister, Palmer, Froggatt, Keane, Roussel. Subs Not Used: Ogrizovic, Breen, Strachan, Eustace, McSheffrey. Booked: Froggatt. Goals: Keane 17, Froggatt 33, Hadji 49, McAllister 62 pen.
WATFORD: Chamberlain, Gibbs, Palmer, Panayi (Ward 45), Lyttle, Johnson, Hyde, Easton, Miller (Ngonge 45), Wooter, Smith (Gudmundsson 72). Subs Not Used: Day, Perpetuini. Att: 21,700.
Referee: P Durkin (Dorset).
