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Against a backdrop of sleet, snow, and a swirling wind off the banks of the Humber Estuary, alongside a determined Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the makings of a challenging night's work for the visitors.

"We could have scored more but the opposition are a good team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m delighted with the display," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a good reception from the fans of supporters. The attitude of the players was superb."

Liam Chelsea manager holds this place dear to him, given some of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in charge of the Tigers. His happy association continued with a commanding display from his squad, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Edge Secures Comprehensive Victory

Seventy-two hours after letting slip a two-goal advantage in the league, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The packed Hull crowd clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the task with ease.

The manager made alterations, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe ought to have been settled long before it eventually was, with both Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of missing glorious opportunities to put their side in front in the first half.

But, luckily for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a spectacular distance effort, which acted as the spark for his team to assume command of the match. By full time, they had 4 goals, with Neto scoring three of them for a superb hat-trick.

The Forward's Redemption and Impact

Hull showed plenty of fight throughout, but the better chances always came Chelsea’s way. The winger ought to have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably firing over. The striker then had a comparable nightmare moment in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a the goalkeeper's clearance which bounced off the bar, and Delap started to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had responded to avert the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely influential from there on out, providing 3 key passes. The first was for the opening goal as his through ball teed up his teammate to score from range. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went straight in under Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Focus Turns

Soon after the second, the match was effectively ended as a dazzling dribble from the forward teed up Estêvão to slide into an unguarded goal. The hat-trick hero then finished his treble as the provider again played the decisive pass for the attacker to calmly convert by a helpless goalkeeper.

By that stage, the work Hull had put in in the first half-hour had been erased. Their priority must now return to achieving a promotion to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested a number of first-choice players with that aim in mind.

"I think we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a very good position in the league," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a good lesson of how we should play."

Hull showed plenty of endeavour to the end, and they nearly got a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a post in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed head coach at a place he knows very well.

Cup History Look Good

The result made for an in the end routine evening’s performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have gone on to make the showpiece. There is remains to be work in that respect, but this was another huge tick for Rosenior.