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Amid freezing rain, snow, and a swirling breeze off the waters of the Humber Estuary, combined with a resolute Hull City side fighting for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We might have added to our tally but Hull are a strong team and it was a tough fixture; I am delighted with the performance," the manager stated. "This club means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from the fans of supporters. The attitude of the lads was superb."

The Chelsea manager holds this place close to his heart, considering part of his family hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in management of the Championship club. This positive association continued with a commanding display from his team, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Clinical Edge Seals Comfortable Victory

Three days after letting slip a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a sniff of vulnerability about them going into this intriguing tie. The capacity home support clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge perfectly.

The manager rang the changes, enacting multiple of them to his XI. The tie could and perhaps ought to have been decided long before it actually was, with both the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for missing glorious opportunities to put their side in front in the first half.

But, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the deadlock with a marvellous long-range strike, which proved to be the catalyst for his team to take command of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto scoring a trio of them for a superb hat-trick.

Delap's Response and Impact

The home side displayed great fight all game, but the clearer opportunities consistently came to the visitors. Estêvão should have opened the scoring when he rounded goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably shooting over. The striker then had a comparable nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a Phillips's clearance which came off the crossbar, and he began to celebrate believing the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's backline had responded to avert the danger.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely influential from there on out, registering 3 key passes. The opening was for the first goal as his through ball set up Neto to finish from range. Six minutes after the second half began, it was two as the forward's set-piece went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Contest Sealed and Focus Turns

Soon after Neto’s second, the match was put beyond doubt as a dazzling run from the forward teed up Estêvão to tap into an unguarded goal. The hat-trick hero then completed his hat-trick as Delap once again played the decisive ball for the attacker to coolly convert past a helpless goalkeeper.

At that point, the work Hull had put in in the opening half-hour had long since forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested several key players with that goal in mind.

"I think we deserved at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a very good position in the Championship," the Hull manager commented. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a good example of how we must play."

There was plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly got a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a the upright in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging stride for their new manager at a place he is familiar with intimately.

FA Cup Omens Are Promising

That resulted in an in the end routine evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are positive from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have gone on to reach the final. Much still work in that respect, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.