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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a biting breeze off the waters of the Humber, combined with a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for the visitors.

"We might have added to our tally but Hull are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I’m delighted with the performance," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a good reception from both sets of fans. The application of the lads was excellent."

Liam Chelsea manager has this city dear to him, considering some of his relatives hail from Hull and his successful period in charge of the Championship club. This happy association continued with a commanding display from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Secures Comprehensive Win

Seventy-two hours after surrendering a 2-0 lead in the Premier League, there was a sniff of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity Hull crowd evidently sensed it too, but the London side handled the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior made alterations, making multiple of them to his XI. The tie could and maybe ought to have been decided earlier than it actually was, with both the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap guilty of spurning excellent opportunities to put their side in front in the first half.

However, fortunately for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the deadlock with a spectacular distance effort, which proved to be the catalyst for Chelsea to assume control of the match. By full time, they had 4 goals, with the forward netting a trio of them for a superb three-goal haul.

The Forward's Response and Influence

Hull displayed plenty of fight throughout, but the better chances consistently fell to the visitors. Estêvão ought to have broken the scoring when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably firing over. The striker then had a comparable nightmare moment in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a the goalkeeper's clearance which came back from the bar, and he began to celebrate believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had reacted to avert the danger.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, providing 3 assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up Neto to finish from range. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went directly in under the keeper's legs.

Contest Sealed and Attention Shifts

Soon after Neto’s second, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling run from Delap laid on his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his treble as the provider again played the crucial ball for the attacker to calmly slot past a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the work Hull had put in in the first half-hour had long since forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice individuals with that aim in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong situation in the league," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next matches this can be a positive example of how we should play."

There was great effort to the final whistle, and they almost claimed a consolation when a substitute struck a post in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' night, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a place he knows intimately.

FA Cup History Look Good

That made for an in the end routine evening’s work, and the cup competition omens are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three previous times in this competition in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have gone on to make the showpiece. Much still done in that respect, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.