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Against a backdrop of sleet, flurries, and a biting breeze off the banks of the Humber Estuary, alongside a determined home side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this presented all the makings of a difficult night's work for Chelsea.

"We might have scored more but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I’m delighted with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a good reception from the fans of fans. The attitude of the players was superb."

Liam Chelsea manager holds this city close to his heart, given part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Championship club. This happy association continued with a magnificent performance from his squad, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Finishing Secures Comfortable Win

Three days removed from letting slip a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity home crowd clearly sensed it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the challenge with ease.

Rosenior made alterations, enacting seven of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe ought to have been settled long before it actually was, with both Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap guilty of missing excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the first half.

But, fortunately for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the deadlock with a marvellous long-range effort, which proved to be the catalyst for his team to assume command of the match. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto netting a trio of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

Delap's Redemption and Influence

The home side displayed great spirit throughout, but the better opportunities consistently came to the visitors. The winger should have broken the scoring when he rounded goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before inexplicably shooting over. Delap then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a Phillips's clearance which came back from the bar, and he started to run away believing the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the threat.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely instrumental from that point onward, registering three key passes. The opening was for the opening goal as his through ball teed up his teammate to score from outside the box. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went directly in through the keeper's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Attention Shifts

Seven minutes after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling dribble from the forward laid on Estêvão to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his hat-trick as the provider again played the decisive ball for the striker to coolly convert past a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had put in in the first thirty minutes had long since forgotten. Their priority must now return to achieving a promotion to the Premier League under their manager, who rested several first-choice individuals with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong position in the league," the Hull manager commented. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next matches this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they almost got a consolation when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another encouraging stride for their new manager at a stadium he knows intimately.

FA Cup History Look Promising

The result made for an in the end routine evening’s performance, and the cup competition omens are good from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three other times in this tournament in the last decade and on each occasion, they have gone on to reach the showpiece. Much remains to be done in that respect, but this was another significant positive for Rosenior.