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Amid sleet, flurries, and a biting wind off the waters of the Humber Estuary, combined with a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a challenging night's work for Chelsea.

"We could have scored more but the opposition are a good 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 good reception from the fans of fans. The attitude of the players was excellent."

Liam Chelsea manager has this place dear to him, considering some of his family are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Tigers. This positive connection was extended with a commanding performance from his team, who ultimately strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Edge Seals Comprehensive Victory

Three days after surrendering a 2-0 advantage in the league, there was a hint of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky tie. The packed home crowd evidently felt it too, but the London side navigated the challenge perfectly.

The manager made alterations, making seven of them to his starting lineup. The match could and maybe should have been settled long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap guilty of spurning excellent chances to put Chelsea ahead in the opening period.

But, luckily for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more clinical frame of mind. He broke the deadlock with a marvellous distance strike, which acted as the spark for Chelsea to take control of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto scoring three of them for a superb hat-trick.

The Forward's Response and Impact

Hull showed great fight all game, but the better opportunities always fell to the visitors. Estêvão should have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a Phillips's kick which bounced off the crossbar, and he began to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's backline had reacted to avert the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was immensely influential from that point onward, registering three assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up Neto to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was two as Neto's corner went directly in through Phillips's legs.

Contest Sealed and Attention Turns

Seven minutes after Neto’s second, the tie was effectively ended as a magnificent run from Delap teed up his teammate to slide into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then finished his treble as the provider once again delivered the crucial ball for the attacker to calmly convert past a stranded Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had put in in the first half-hour had long since erased. Their priority must now return to achieving a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of key individuals with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong position in the Championship," the Hull manager commented. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

There was great endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly got a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a post in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s night, and another positive step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a stadium he is familiar with intimately.

FA Cup Omens Are Promising

The result resulted in an ultimately straightforward evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three previous times in this competition in the last decade and on each occasion, they have gone on to make the final. There is remains to be done in that regard, but this was another significant positive for Rosenior.