Now that the bookmakers, Leeds and Arsenal have ceded the title back to Old Trafford the only danger to United is the enemy within: the transparent belief that superior ability will bring an inevitable reward. Alex Ferguson has a forthright word for it: complacency.
Complacency seeped through this performance as United continued to struggle to shake off the rust of Rio. The ever-grander Old Trafford superstructure, heaving with yet another Premiership record crowd, was often reduced to pin-drop silence as home action failed to meet expectations. But on this day superior ability ultimately held sway notably in the vibrant skills of the returning Andy Cole.
Gordon Strachan tellingly noted that United "had four chances and took three - that's real quality". For Coventry's manager the race has already been run and he admitted: "I would imagine they've won the league again." Only sheer carelessness, he and most of his fellow managers agree, or the magnificent destruction of Europe, can thwart United.
Ferguson had changed the habits of a lifetime by criticising his players in print - they went "too far" in haranguing the referee Andy D'Urso the previous Saturday, he wrote in the match programme - but he reverted to type by tea-time, cautioning that next month's congested programme was pivotal to United's season. Yet, with knowing understatement, he declared: "It's been a good day for us."
Domestically, as Leeds and Arsenal obligingly made way, United have room to manoeuvre. Ferguson knows it, venturing a target: "We've got 15 games left and if we win 10 of them, we've got a chance of winning the title."
Even that appears cautious, for it would bring a total of 83 points, four and five points more respectively than the championship marks of the past two years.
Put more boldly, that means United can afford to lose at Leeds, now six points adrift, on Sunday week while Arsenal, nine points off the pace, desperately attempt to retrieve what seems a lost cause.
United may now have three successive away games but Ferguson is more concerned with next month, in which every midweek sees his team in European combat. "I just hope we can keep a good, strong squad for March," he said. "With the Champions League, it will be a hard month for us." Ferguson paid Andy Cole the ultimate compliment of comparing his magnificent first goal to "one of Eric Cantona's a few years ago".
The reminiscence was understandable as Cole, outmanoeuvring Gary Breen, switched from left foot to right to chip over Magnus Hedman.
Such precision mocked United's slipshod approach for the previous 38 minutes. Coventry's massed midfield, leaving the powerful Cedric Roussel as the lone striker, made life that much harder.
Cole's second goal was mundane, a simple header from David Beckham's free-kick, and the crucial third, by Paul Scholes, a further slight to Coventry's disciplined endeavours.
Hedman, perhaps wrongfooted, slipped as the midfielder's speculative 25-yard shot found its target.
Man Utd: Bosnich, G. Neville, Stam, Silvestre, P Neville, Beckham, Keane, Scholes, Solskjaer (Butt 70), Cole, Sheringham (Cruyff 80). Subs Not Used: Van Der Gouw, Irwin, Yorke. Booked: Solskjaer. Goals: Cole 39, 54, Scholes 77.
Coventry: Hedman, Telfer (Eustace 10), Williams, Breen, Shaw, Gustafsson, Palmer, McAllister, Froggatt, Keane, Roussel. Subs Not Used: Ogrizovic, Konjic, Strachan, Delorge. Goals: Roussel 65, 90.
Referee: A Wilkie (Chester Le Street).
