Concerns may have been aired during the week about Claudio Ranieri needing an interpreter to get his message across in the Stamford Bridge dressing room. But nothing was lost in the translation on Saturday.
Chelsea's football was as fluent as their coach's English is not, a clear indication that the Italian's demands and tactical message are quickly getting through to the cosmopolitan minds that make up the first-team squad.
So relentless were Chelsea's attacking options that they were overwhelming Coventry long before the visitors were reduced to 10 men when their young goalkeeper Chris Kirkland was wrongly sent off after a challenge with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
Having said that, Ranieri is astute enough not to get carried away by a one-sided win. Teams often play better with 10 men, but Coventry were so hapless it was if they were trying to offer physical proof of why they have been leading the campaign for a more equitable share of Premiership television money.
They gave the ball away at will, were regularly caught in possession and defended with all the nous of a sand castle at high tide.
"This was a horrible experience that we must all learn from," said their manager Gordon Strachan, although the only clear realisation he can surely come to is that his side is simply not good enough to achieve much more than avoid relegation.
Every time Chelsea attacked - and, it has to be stressed, every time - they looked as if they would score. The only relief to Coventry was that somehow they managed to avoid double figures.
If the villain of the piece was the referee Steve Lodge for reducing Kirkland to tears in only his second first-team start, the hero was Hasselbaink who ended up with four goals to double his season's tally.
Not that there was any sign of such ruthlessness in the opening 20 minutes when the Dutchman somehow missed two sitters from all of six yards and watched a diving Kirkland push aside his 19-yard drive.
But then he got a lucky break. As he fastened on to a lovely through ball from the returning Gustavo Poyet and took the ball round Kirkland, the 19-year-old - only playing because of a goalkeeper injury crisis at Highfield Road - got a touch on the ball before Hasselbaink fell over his shoulder.
Bizarrely, Lodge pointed to the spot and sent off Kirkland - awful decisions both. Hasselbaink converted the penalty and Chelsea were away.
Ranieri had spent the previous week working with his players on a new 3-4-2-1 formation, and the hard work paid off as Chelsea found so much space behind the Coventry backline it was embarrassing.
An end-to-end move started by Dennis Wise's dummy concluded with Hasselbaink taking on the clueless Gary Breen, before bending a shot low past the substitute goalkeeper Alan Miller for No2 on 42 minutes.
The third goal arrived two minutes into the new half. A great ball from Sam Dalla Bona played in Gianfranco Zola behind the Coventry defence and the little Italian found the net via the post.
Five minutes later Tore Andre Flo and Poyet linked up down the right, Zola's shot was saved by Miller's legs and Hasselbaink mopped up the rebound to complete his hat-trick.
Zola then fluffed two chances before, on 58 minutes, a poor Coventry pass was intercepted by Mario Melchiot and fed to Flo, who found Hasselbaink. A little drag-back produced space for the shot and goal No5.
Miller then saved from Dalla Bona and Hasselbaink before goal No6 arrived. Celestine Babyaro's cross found Flo's head so easily that the Norwegian looked embarrassed to claim any credit.
A miskick by the under-employed Ed de Goey allowed Cedric Roussel to snatch a late consolation goal for Coventry. But despite the excuse of having only 10 men, there was no escaping the fact that Strachan's team had been comprehensively outclassed.
