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Against a backdrop of sleet, snow, and a biting wind off the waters of the Humber Estuary, alongside a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this presented 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 tie; I am delighted with the display," the manager stated. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from both sets of fans. The application of the lads was excellent."

The Chelsea manager holds this city dear to him, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in charge of the Championship club. His positive association was extended with a commanding performance from his team, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Clinical Edge Secures Comfortable Win

Three days after letting slip a two-goal lead in the league, there was a sniff of vulnerability about them going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity Hull crowd evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the challenge with ease.

Rosenior rang the changes, enacting multiple of them to his starting lineup. The match could and perhaps should have been settled long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap guilty of missing glorious opportunities to put their side ahead in the opening period.

However, luckily for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless mood. He opened the deadlock with a spectacular long-range strike, which proved to be the spark for his team to take control of the match. By the final whistle, they had four, with the forward netting a trio of them for a superb three-goal haul.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

Hull displayed great fight all game, but the better chances always came Chelsea’s way. Estêvão ought to have opened the scoring when he went past keeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably shooting over. The striker then had a comparable horror moment in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a the goalkeeper's clearance which came back from the crossbar, and he started to celebrate believing the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had reacted to avert the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, registering three assists. The first was for the first goal as his through ball teed up Neto to score from range. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Turns

Seven minutes after Neto’s second goal, the match was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from the forward teed up Estêvão to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his hat-trick as Delap once again played the decisive ball for the striker to calmly slot past a helpless goalkeeper.

By that stage, the effort Hull had put in in the opening half-hour had been erased. Their focus must now switch back to achieving a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested several key individuals with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a strong position in the Championship," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

There was great effort to the final whistle, and they nearly claimed a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another positive stride for their recently-appointed manager at a place he is familiar with intimately.

FA Cup Omens Are Good

That resulted in an ultimately routine night's performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are positive from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three previous occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have progressed to make the showpiece. There is remains to be done in that respect, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.