FA Cup/ Chelsea 3 Nottm Forest 0: Roman Abramovich stayed away, preferring to spend the weekend watching teams from Israel, Russia and Ukraine compete in a friendly tournament mounted with his money. Maybe he knows more about football than we think.

Back in west London there was nothing of significance to be learned from a match that resembled a pre-season kickabout against a semi-pro side, and precious little to enjoy.

For that the blame could be laid squarely at the feet of a Nottingham Forest team who, whatever their intentions, appeared not just outclassed but thoroughly overawed; their performance contained none of the fire expected of underdogs in the fourth round of the FA Cup. Lying 45 rungs below Chelsea on the ladder of English football, they gave the champions less of a game than Macclesfield - then last but one in the fourth tier - had managed in the third round.

Before the match, Chic Thomson, the 76-year-old former goalkeeper who won a 1954-'55 championship medal with Ted Drake's Chelsea and a cup winner's medal four years later with Billy Walker's Forest, talked of the difference between those teams.

Whereas Walker discouraged attempts to pass more than 30 yards, thus laying the foundations of a tradition refined by Johnny Carey and Brian Clough, Drake encouraged a long-ball game. Here the approaches were reversed.

"I think the history of the game was the history of the first half," Jose Mourinho said, and that could best be told in its statistics. Chelsea enjoyed 81 per cent of possession and got off 18 shots to Forest's none. And of those 18, three produced goals.

"Shh, Jose - the legend is here," claimed a banner bearing a portrait of Clough. But the man who brought two European Cups to the City Ground would not have recognised the way Forest's defence allowed Chelsea to take a ninth-minute lead. When Didier Drogba and Ian Breckin jumped to meet Geremi's long throw from the right, the ball fell to Andriy Shevchenko inside the penalty area. With an embarrassment of time the Ukrainian hit a shot across Paul Smith in goal. Smith's dive might have allowed him to make the save, had John Curtis not deflected the ball into the opposite corner.

As Forest's challenge went from anaemic to negligible, it became apparent Chelsea were winning not just the second balls but the third, fourth and fifth balls as well. Drogba, Shevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Frank Lampard were lining up to take pot-shots as ball after ball fell to them from clearances that barely made it out of the visitors' penalty area.

The second goal came after 18 minutes, when Nicky Southall was adjudged to have fouled Wayne Bridge 20 yards from goal. Forest pulled every man back into the wall but to no avail. Drogba stroked a dipping, curling free-kick that brushed Smith's hand on its way into the net.

Chelsea's superiority was encapsulated when, in a rare display of enterprise, Nathan Tyson took on Michael Essien down the left midway through the first half. The Ghanaian kept pace with Forest's speed merchant, waiting for him to check inside before depriving him of the ball with a single, perfectly timed flick of his foot, like a policeman taking a stolen bag of sweets from a schoolboy.

What Forest did not need was to concede another goal before the interval. In the minute added on to the first half, however, they failed to clear Lampard's corner from the left and saw Mikel John Obi react before the surrounding defenders to dab the ball home at the near post.

All hope gone, Forest could only attempt to keep the score down. Their success in achieving that aim was an improvement which, as their manager said afterwards, was a lot easier to accomplish at 3-0 down. Good teams, Colin Calderwood added, show that kind of spirit at nil-nil. Would he be taking any positives out of the afternoon? "None," he said, and let the ensuing silence speak for itself.

Forest managed a single shot, from Junior Agogo, in the second period, but the measure of their humiliation came at the whistle. When Tyson asked Geremi for his shirt, the Chelsea man happily agreed without bothering to ask his opponent to reciprocate.

• Guardian Service