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Amid sleet, flurries, and a biting wind from the waters of the Humber, alongside a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging night's task for the visitors.

"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a good team and it was a tough tie; I’m delighted with the display," the manager stated. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a good reception from both sets of fans. The attitude of the players was excellent."

Liam Chelsea manager has this place close to his heart, given part of his family are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in management of the Tigers. His happy association was extended with a commanding display from his squad, who ultimately strolled into the next round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Secures Comfortable Win

Three days removed from letting slip a two-goal advantage in the Premier League, there was a hint of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The capacity Hull support evidently sensed it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge with ease.

Rosenior rang the changes, enacting seven of them to his XI. The tie could and maybe ought to have been settled long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap at fault for spurning excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the first half.

But, fortunately for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more clinical mood. He broke the deadlock with a spectacular distance effort, which acted as the spark for his team to take command of the match. By full time, they had 4 goals, with the forward scoring a trio of them for a brilliant hat-trick.

The Forward's Response and Influence

The home side showed plenty of fight all game, but the better chances consistently fell to the visitors. Estêvão ought to have opened the deadlock when he went past keeper Dillon Phillips before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's kick which came off the bar, and he began 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 clear the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely influential from there on out, registering 3 assists. The first was for the opening goal as his through ball set up Neto to score from outside the box. Shortly after the restart, it was two as the forward's set-piece went directly in through the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Focus Turns

Soon after the second, the match was effectively ended as a dazzling dribble from Delap laid on his teammate to slide into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then finished his treble as the provider once again delivered the decisive pass for the attacker to coolly convert by a stranded Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had done in the first thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their priority must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice players with that aim 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 upcoming matches this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great endeavour to the end, and they almost claimed a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a post in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging step forward for their new head coach at a stadium he is familiar with intimately.

Cup History Look Promising

That resulted in an ultimately straightforward evening’s performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this competition in the last decade and every single time, they have progressed to make the final. Much remains to be done in that regard, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.