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Against a backdrop of sleet, flurries, and a biting wind off the banks of the Humber, combined with a determined Hull City side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this had all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We could have scored more but the opposition are a good team and it was a difficult tie; I am very pleased with the performance," he said. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a good reception from both sets of fans. The application of the players was superb."

The Rosenior has this place dear to him, given part of his relatives are from Hull and his successful period in management of the Tigers. This happy association was extended with a magnificent performance from his team, who in the end sauntered into the next round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Finishing Secures Comprehensive Victory

Seventy-two hours removed from letting slip a 2-0 advantage in the Premier League, there was a sniff of fragility about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The packed home support evidently sensed it too, but Rosenior's men handled the task with ease.

Rosenior made alterations, enacting multiple of them to his XI. The match might and maybe should have been settled long before it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for spurning excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the first half.

However, luckily for the visitors, Pedro Neto was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the deadlock with a spectacular distance strike, which acted as the catalyst for his team to assume control of proceedings. By full time, they had 4 goals, with the forward netting three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

Delap's Response and Impact

The home side displayed great fight throughout, but the better opportunities consistently fell to the visitors. Estêvão should have broken the scoring when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably firing over. The striker then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a Phillips's clearance which bounced back from the bar, and he started to run away believing the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, registering three key passes. The opening was for the first goal as his pass teed up Neto to finish from outside the box. Shortly after the restart, it was two as Neto's corner went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Contest Sealed and Attention Turns

Soon after the second goal, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling dribble from Delap teed up his teammate to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his treble as Delap again played the crucial ball for the attacker to coolly slot by a stranded goalkeeper.

At that point, the effort Hull had done in the first half-hour had long since erased. Their focus must now switch back to securing a promotion to the Premier League under their manager, who left out a number of key individuals with that aim in mind.

"I think we deserved at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a very good position in the Championship," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

There was plenty of effort to the end, and they almost claimed a late goal when a substitute struck a post in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed head coach at a stadium he knows intimately.

Cup History Look Promising

The result made for an in the end straightforward night's performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three other occasions in this competition in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have gone on to make the showpiece. Much remains to be done in that regard, but this was another huge positive for the Chelsea boss.