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Against a backdrop of sleet, snow, and a biting breeze off the banks of the Humber Estuary, combined with a determined Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging night's work for the visitors.

"We might have scored more but Hull are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I’m delighted with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a positive reception from both sets of fans. The application of the players was excellent."

The Rosenior holds this place dear to him, given some of his family hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in management of the Championship club. His happy connection was extended with a commanding performance from his squad, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Edge Secures Comprehensive Victory

Three days removed from surrendering a two-goal lead in the Premier League, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The packed home support evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge with ease.

The manager made alterations, enacting seven of them to his XI. The match could and perhaps should have been decided long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap at fault for missing glorious chances to put Chelsea in front in the opening period.

But, luckily for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless mood. He broke the scoring with a marvellous long-range effort, which acted as the catalyst for Chelsea to assume control of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had 4 goals, with Neto scoring three of them for a superb three-goal haul.

The Forward's Response and Impact

Hull showed great spirit all game, but the better chances consistently fell to the visitors. The winger should have broken the scoring when he rounded keeper the Hull stopper before unbelievably shooting over. Delap then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which came off the crossbar, and Delap started to run away believing the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to clear the danger.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely instrumental from that point onward, providing three assists. The opening was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Focus Shifts

Seven minutes after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling run from the forward teed up his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his hat-trick as Delap again played the decisive ball for the attacker to coolly convert by a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the work Hull had done in the first thirty minutes had long since erased. Their focus must now switch back to achieving a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested several first-choice players 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 situation in the Championship," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the upcoming games this can be a positive example of how we must play."

There was great endeavour to the end, and they almost got a late goal when a substitute struck a post in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another positive step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a place he is familiar with intimately.

FA Cup History Are Promising

That made for an in the end straightforward evening’s performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three other times in this tournament in the last decade and every single time, they have gone on to reach the showpiece. Much remains to be done in that respect, but this was another huge positive for Rosenior.