There were some Coventry supporters who feared that they might have to employ a medium to discover life after Dion Dublin at Highfield Road.

Dublin's outrageous start to his new career with Aston Villa, for whom he has scored five goals in two games, increased the pressure on City's remaining strike force of Darren Huckerby and Noel Whelan. Coventry, however, have eased up to 15th position with successive wins at Blackburn and at home to Everton yesterday and Huckerby and Whelan have scored in both matches.

Yesterday's match was not as one-sided as the scoreline would suggest but this was still a performance of some spirit from Coventry, whose move to fill the hole left by Dublin by agreeing a fee of £2.5 million for the Norway under-21 international Rune Lange almost appears superfluous this morning.

For Everton this was another dark day. They matched Coventry for most of the first half and their pursuit of a number of attacking options suggested that they might be becoming less enslaved to the simplistic search for Duncan Ferguson's head.

But this became an increasingly attractive route as they were roundly outplayed in the second half and they ended well beaten once more. This was their third successive defeat and they have just two points and one goal from their last five games. In 13 Premiership matches they have failed to score on nine occasions. They are down to 17th place and the manager Walter Smith's £21.3 million spending spree since his arrival in the summer has failed to transform the team.

Smith's weary, post-match shrug is becoming familiar south of the border. "I'm not too unhappy with the way we played. We've certainly played worse than that. But we were chasing the game once they had gone ahead with that excellent strike from Stephen Froggatt."

The star of the afternoon was clearly Froggatt, on the left of Coventry's midfield. He put his side ahead in the 16th minute with a spectacular goal. The impressive Roland Nilsson won his challenge on Ibrahima Bakayoko and immediately fed the ball to Froggatt who sprinted 30 yards before, from the edge of the area, striking a rising left-foot drive into the top right corner. The match was over when Coventry scored their second four minutes into the second half. Froggatt, their £1.9 million signing from Wolves, crossed from the left and Huckerby took a single touch before shooting past Thomas Myhre.

In the 90th minute Whelan made it 3-0 after David Unsworth could only block Huckerby's shot following more good work on the left from Froggatt and Philippe Clement.

Coventry City: Hedman, Nilsson, Edworthy, Williams, Shaw, McAllister, Telfer, Clement, Froggatt, Huckerby, Whelan. Subs Not Used: Ogrizovic, Breen, Boateng, Soltvedt, Shilton. Booked: Huckerby. Goals: Froggatt 15, Huckerby 48, Whelan 89.

Everton: Myhre, Cleland (Milligan 78), Ball, Unsworth, Short, Materazzi, Collins, Hutchison, Grant, Ferguson, Bakayoko (Cadamarteri 56). Subs Not Used: Simonsen, Watson, Dunne. Booked: Unsworth, Bakayoko, Materazzi.

Referee: G Poll (Tring).