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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a swirling breeze off the waters of the Humber Estuary, combined with a determined home side fighting for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a difficult evening’s work for the visitors.

"We might have scored more but Hull are a strong team and it was a tough tie; I am very pleased with the performance," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was great to get a positive reception from both sets of fans. The attitude of the players was excellent."

The Rosenior has this place close to his heart, given some of his family are from Hull and his successful period in management of the Championship club. This happy association continued with a commanding performance from his team, who ultimately strolled into the next round of the FA Cup.

Clinical Edge Seals Comfortable Win

Seventy-two hours after letting slip a two-goal lead in the league, there was a hint of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The capacity home support evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the challenge perfectly.

The manager made alterations, making seven of them to his XI. The match could and perhaps should have been settled long before it actually was, with both Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of missing excellent chances to put Chelsea in front in the opening period.

However, fortunately for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a marvellous distance effort, which proved to be the spark for his team to assume command of proceedings. By full time, they had four, with Neto scoring a trio of them for a superb three-goal haul.

The Forward's Response and Influence

The home side showed great spirit all game, but the clearer opportunities consistently fell Chelsea’s way. The winger ought to have broken the scoring when he went past goalkeeper the Hull stopper before unbelievably shooting over. The striker then had a comparable horror moment in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which came off the bar, and he started to celebrate believing the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had responded to avert the threat.

The player had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was immensely influential from there on out, registering three key passes. The first was for the first goal as his pass teed up his teammate to score from range. Six minutes after the restart, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went straight in through Phillips's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Attention Turns

Soon after Neto’s second, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling run from the forward laid on his teammate to tap into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then completed his hat-trick as Delap again played the crucial pass for the attacker to coolly slot by a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had put in in the first half-hour had long since forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to achieving a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested several first-choice players with that goal in mind.

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

There was great endeavour to the final whistle, and they almost claimed a consolation when Lewis Koumas hit a the upright in injury time. But this was the Blues' night, and another encouraging stride for their recently-appointed manager at a stadium he knows very well.

FA Cup History Are Promising

The result resulted in an in the end routine evening’s performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three previous times in this competition in the past ten years 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 huge tick for Rosenior.