Coventry City 1-0 Nottingham Forest | Championship match reportWritten by: Editor on 9th February 2010
 
The first cracks in Nottingham Forest’s promotion charge have started to appear. After 19 matches without defeat, Billy Davies’s side have now lost two of their last three fixtures, derailing their pursuit of Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion at the top of the table. Freddy Eastwood’s seventh goal of the season proved to the difference on a night when Forest’s neat, incisive passing game badly lacked a cutting edge. Signs of unrest off the field suggest Forest’s problems might run deeper. Davies has done nothing to conceal his frustration at the board’s failure to bring in a single signing in January. Forest would certainly have welcomed some fresh energy here as their threat petered out at the end of a match that finished with Amy Fearn, the female assistant referee who was heavily criticised by Mike Newell in 2006, in charge after Tony Bates was forced to limp off. Although Eastwood’s goal, prodded home from close range after Lee Camp could only parry Richard Wood’s shot, came against the run of play, Forest’s dominance in the opening 45 minutes produced few decent chances. The only genuine opportunities fell to the recalled Joe Garner, who saw his low drive blocked by Keiren Westwood in the sixth minute, following Paul McKenna’s quick free-kick. Later in the half, Garner headed wide with the Coventry goalkeeper beaten. Westwood was exposed again early in the second half, when Chris Cohen’s inswinging free-kick caused consternation in the Coventry defence, but Guy Moussi somehow steered the ball wide despite the freedom he was afforded in the area. Pressure, however, was mounting on the home side as Forest continued to probe. Radoslaw Majewski curled a shot that skimmed the roof of the net via a deflection before later firing inches over from 25 yards. Forest’s pursuit of an equaliser was always going to leave them vulnerable and Eastwood should have punished them when he escaped in the 65th minute but he stumbled before eventually blazing over. The substitute Gary Deegan squandered an ever better chance when he ran onto Sammy Clingan’s pass in the 88th minute but shot against the side-netting. By that time Forest had run out of ideas and were staring defeat in the face.
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