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Amid sleet, flurries, and a biting breeze off the banks of the Humber, combined with a resolute Hull City side fighting for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a difficult night's work for the visitors.

"We could have scored more but the opposition are a strong team and it was a tough fixture; I am very pleased with the display," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was great to get a good reception from the fans of supporters. The attitude of the players was excellent."

The Rosenior holds this place dear to him, considering part of his family hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Tigers. His happy connection was extended with a magnificent display from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Edge Secures Comfortable Victory

Three days removed from surrendering a two-goal lead in the league, there was a hint of vulnerability about them going into this intriguing cup clash. The capacity Hull crowd evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe ought to have been settled long before it actually was, with both Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap at fault for spurning excellent opportunities to put Chelsea in front in the first half.

However, luckily for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more clinical mood. He opened the deadlock with a marvellous distance effort, which acted as the spark for his team to assume control of the match. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto netting three of them for a superb three-goal haul.

Delap's Response and Impact

Hull showed plenty of spirit throughout, but the better opportunities consistently fell to the visitors. The winger should have opened the scoring when he rounded goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a comparable horror incident in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a Phillips's kick which bounced off the bar, and he began to run away believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had reacted to avert the danger.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely instrumental from that point onward, providing 3 assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up Neto to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was two as Neto's corner went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Focus Turns

Soon after the second goal, the match was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from Delap teed up his teammate to slide into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then finished his hat-trick as Delap once again delivered the decisive pass for the attacker to calmly slot by a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had put in in the opening half-hour had been erased. Their priority must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under their manager, who rested a number of first-choice players with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion 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. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they almost got a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a post in injury time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a stadium he knows very well.

FA Cup History Look Promising

That resulted in an in the end straightforward evening’s performance, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this competition in the past ten years and every single time, they have gone on to reach the showpiece. There is remains to be done in that regard, but this was another significant tick for the Chelsea boss.