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Amid sleet, snow, and a biting wind from the waters of the Humber, alongside a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the makings of a difficult evening’s task for the visitors.

"We could have added to our tally but Hull are a strong team and it was a difficult fixture; I am very pleased with the display," he said. "This club is very special to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from both sets of fans. The attitude of the players was excellent."

The Rosenior holds this place close to his heart, given some of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Championship club. This happy association continued with a magnificent display from his squad, who ultimately strolled into the next round of the FA Cup.

Clinical Edge Seals Comfortable Victory

Three days removed from surrendering a two-goal lead in the league, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The packed Hull crowd evidently felt it too, but the London side handled the task with ease.

Rosenior made alterations, enacting multiple of them to his starting lineup. The match might and perhaps should have been decided long before it eventually was, with two the Brazilian winger and the forward at fault for spurning glorious opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the opening period.

But, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more clinical frame of mind. He opened the deadlock with a marvellous distance effort, which acted as the spark for Chelsea to assume command of the match. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto scoring three of them for a superb hat-trick.

Delap's Redemption and Impact

Hull showed great fight all game, but the better chances always fell Chelsea’s way. The winger ought to have broken the scoring when he rounded keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably shooting over. The striker then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a Phillips's kick which came off the crossbar, and he started to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had reacted to avert the threat.

The player had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, registering 3 key passes. The opening was for the first goal as his pass set up Neto to score from range. Six minutes after the restart, it was 2-0 as the forward's corner went directly in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Turns

Soon after the second goal, the match was effectively ended as a magnificent run from Delap laid on his teammate to tap into an empty net. Neto then completed his hat-trick as the provider again delivered the decisive pass for the attacker to coolly convert past a helpless Phillips.

By that stage, the effort Hull had put in in the first thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their priority must now switch back to achieving a promotion to the Premier League under their manager, who rested a number of key players 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 situation in the league," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming matches this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly claimed a consolation when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was the Blues' night, and another positive step forward for their recently-appointed head coach at a stadium he is familiar with very well.

FA Cup Omens Are Promising

That resulted in an ultimately routine evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are good from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three previous times in this competition in the last decade and every single time, they have gone on to make the final. There is remains to be work in that respect, but this was another significant positive for the Chelsea boss.