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Against a backdrop of sleet, flurries, and a biting breeze from the waters of the Humber, alongside a determined Hull City side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this had all the makings of a challenging night's task for the visitors.

"We could have scored more but Hull are a good team and it was a tough tie; I am very pleased with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City is very special to me so it was nice to get a good welcome from the fans of fans. The application of the lads was excellent."

The Rosenior has this place close to his heart, considering part of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable period in management of the Tigers. His happy association continued with a magnificent performance from his team, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Seals Comfortable Win

Three days after letting slip a two-goal lead in the league, there was a hint of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity home support clearly sensed it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the task with ease.

Rosenior rang the changes, making seven of them to his XI. The tie could and perhaps should have been settled long before it eventually was, with both Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of spurning excellent opportunities to put their side in front in the opening period.

But, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless mood. He opened the deadlock with a marvellous long-range effort, which acted as the spark for Chelsea to assume command of proceedings. By full time, they had four, with Neto netting three of them for a superb hat-trick.

Delap's Response and Impact

Hull showed plenty of fight throughout, but the clearer chances consistently came Chelsea’s way. The winger should have broken the deadlock when he rounded keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which bounced back from the crossbar, and he began to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had reacted to avert the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was immensely instrumental from there on out, registering three assists. The opening was for the first goal as his pass teed up his teammate to finish from range. Shortly after the second half began, it was two as the forward's set-piece went directly in under the keeper's legs.

Contest Sealed and Focus Turns

Soon after the second goal, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling dribble from the forward teed up Estêvão to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his treble as Delap once again played the crucial pass for the striker to calmly convert past a helpless goalkeeper.

At that point, the effort Hull had put in in the opening thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested a number of key individuals with that aim in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong position in the league," the Hull manager commented. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a good example of how we should play."

There was great effort to the final whistle, and they nearly claimed a consolation when a substitute struck a post in injury time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed head coach at a place he is familiar with very well.

FA Cup History Are Good

That made for an in the end routine evening’s performance, and the cup competition signs are good from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have progressed to make the showpiece. There is still done in that respect, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.