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Against a backdrop of sleet, snow, and a biting breeze from the banks of the Humber, alongside a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the makings of a difficult night's task for the visitors.

"We might have added to our tally but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I am very pleased with the display," the manager stated. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from both sets of fans. The attitude of the lads was superb."

Liam Chelsea manager has this city close to his heart, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in charge of the Tigers. His happy connection was extended with a magnificent display from his team, who in the end strolled into the next round of the FA Cup.

Clinical Edge Secures Comprehensive Win

Seventy-two hours after letting slip a two-goal advantage in the Premier League, there was a hint of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The capacity Hull crowd evidently felt it too, but the London side handled the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, enacting multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and perhaps should have been settled long before it eventually was, with two the Brazilian winger and the forward at fault for spurning excellent opportunities to put Chelsea in front in the first half.

However, fortunately for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a much more clinical frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a spectacular distance effort, which proved to be the spark for his team to take command of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had 4 goals, with the forward scoring three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

The home side displayed great fight throughout, but the better chances always came to the visitors. The winger ought to have broken the deadlock when he went past keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably 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 bounced off the bar, and Delap began to celebrate believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had reacted to avert the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was immensely influential from there on out, registering three key passes. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to score from range. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Turns

Soon after Neto’s second goal, the match was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from the forward laid on his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his treble as the provider again delivered the decisive ball for the attacker to coolly convert by a stranded goalkeeper.

At that point, the work Hull had put in in the first thirty minutes had long since forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to achieving a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out several key players 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 position in the Championship," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a positive example of how we should play."

Hull showed plenty of effort to the final whistle, and they almost got a late goal when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging step forward for their new manager at a stadium he is familiar with very well.

FA Cup Omens Are Good

That resulted in an ultimately routine evening’s performance, and the cup competition signs are positive from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three previous occasions in this tournament in the last decade and every single time, they have progressed to make the showpiece. Much remains to be work in that regard, but this was another huge positive for Rosenior.