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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a swirling breeze off the banks of the Humber, combined with a determined home side fighting for a top-flight place, this presented all the ingredients of a difficult evening’s task for Chelsea.

"We might have scored more but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I’m delighted 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 supporters. The attitude of the players was superb."

The Rosenior holds this city close to his heart, given part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Tigers. This happy connection continued with a magnificent performance from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Edge Secures Comprehensive Victory

Seventy-two hours after surrendering a 2-0 advantage in the league, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The capacity home crowd evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the task with ease.

The manager rang the changes, enacting multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe ought to have been decided long before it eventually was, with two the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for missing glorious opportunities to put Chelsea in front in the opening period.

However, luckily for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a far more ruthless mood. He broke the deadlock with a spectacular distance effort, which proved to be the spark for his team to assume command of the match. By full time, they had 4 goals, with Neto scoring a trio of them for a superb three-goal haul.

Delap's Redemption and Influence

The home side displayed plenty of spirit throughout, but the better chances always came to the visitors. Estêvão should have broken the scoring when he rounded keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a comparable horror incident in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a the goalkeeper's kick which came off the crossbar, and Delap began to celebrate thinking the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely instrumental from that point onward, providing three key passes. The opening was for the opening goal as his through ball set up Neto to score from range. Shortly after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went directly in under the keeper's legs.

Contest Sealed and Attention Shifts

Soon after the second, the match was put beyond doubt as a magnificent run from Delap laid on Estêvão to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his hat-trick as the provider once again delivered the crucial ball for the striker to calmly convert past a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had done in the first half-hour had been erased. Their priority must now return to achieving a return to the Premier League under their manager, who left out a number of first-choice individuals with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a very good situation in the league," the Hull manager commented. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming games this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great effort to the end, and they nearly got a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a post in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' night, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a place he is familiar with intimately.

Cup History Look Good

The result resulted in an in the end routine evening’s work, and the cup competition omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have progressed to make the showpiece. Much remains to be done in that respect, but this was another significant positive for the Chelsea boss.