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Against a backdrop of freezing rain, snow, and a swirling wind off the waters of the Humber, alongside a resolute Hull City side fighting for a top-flight place, this had all the makings of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We might have scored more but the opposition are a strong team and it was a tough tie; I am very pleased with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a good reception from both sets of fans. The application of the players was excellent."

Liam Chelsea manager holds this city dear to him, considering some of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Tigers. This positive connection was extended with a magnificent display from his team, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Finishing Secures Comfortable Win

Three days after surrendering a two-goal advantage in the Premier League, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The packed Hull crowd clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, making seven of them to his starting lineup. The match might and maybe should have been decided long before it eventually was, with both the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap guilty of missing excellent chances to put Chelsea in front in the opening period.

However, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a marvellous long-range strike, which acted as the catalyst for his team to take command of proceedings. By full time, they had four, with the forward scoring a trio of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

Delap's Redemption and Influence

The home side showed great fight all game, but the better chances consistently fell Chelsea’s way. The winger should have broken the scoring when he rounded keeper Dillon Phillips before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a comparable horror incident in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a Phillips's kick which came off the crossbar, and Delap started to run away thinking the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely instrumental from that point onward, providing three assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass set up his teammate to score from outside the box. Shortly after the second half began, it was two as the forward's corner went directly in through Phillips's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Attention Shifts

Soon after the second, the match was effectively ended as a dazzling run from Delap laid on his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his treble as the provider once again delivered the decisive pass for the striker to calmly convert by a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the effort Hull had put in in the first thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of key individuals with that aim in mind.

"In my opinion we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong position in the league," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a good example of how we must play."

There was great endeavour to the end, and they almost claimed a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a the upright in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s night, and another positive step forward for their new manager at a stadium he knows intimately.

FA Cup Omens Look Promising

The result resulted in an in the end routine night's work, and the cup competition omens are positive from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three other times in this tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have gone on to make the final. Much still done in that regard, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.