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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a biting wind from the waters of the Humber, alongside a determined Hull City side fighting for promotion, this presented all the makings of a difficult night's work for Chelsea.

"We might have scored more but the opposition are a strong team and it was a tough tie; I’m delighted with the performance," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from the fans of fans. The application of the players was superb."

The Chelsea manager holds this place dear to him, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in management of the Championship club. His positive association was extended with a magnificent performance from his team, who ultimately strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Secures Comfortable Win

Seventy-two hours after surrendering a 2-0 advantage in the league, there was a hint of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The capacity home support clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, enacting multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie could and perhaps ought to have been settled long before it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for missing excellent chances to put their side ahead in the first half.

However, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless mood. He opened the scoring with a marvellous long-range strike, which acted as the catalyst for his team to take command of the match. By full time, they had four, with Neto scoring three of them for a superb hat-trick.

The Forward's Redemption and Impact

Hull displayed plenty of spirit throughout, but the better opportunities always came to the visitors. Estêvão ought to have opened the deadlock when he rounded keeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably shooting over. The striker then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which came off the bar, and Delap started to run away thinking the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely influential from there on out, registering 3 key passes. The first was for the first goal as his pass teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went straight in under Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Focus Shifts

Soon after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a magnificent run from the forward laid on Estêvão to tap into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then finished his hat-trick as Delap once again played the crucial ball for the attacker to calmly slot by a stranded Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had done in the first half-hour had long since forgotten. Their focus must now return to achieving a promotion to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice individuals with that aim in mind.

"I think we deserved at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a very good position in the league," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a positive example of how we should play."

Hull showed great effort to the end, and they nearly got a consolation when a substitute struck a the upright in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' night, and another positive step forward for their new manager at a place he knows intimately.

Cup Omens Look Promising

That made for an ultimately routine night'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 tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have gone on to reach the final. There is remains to be work in that regard, but this was another significant positive for the Chelsea boss.