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Amid sleet, flurries, and a swirling breeze off the waters of the Humber Estuary, combined with a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging night's task for the visitors.

"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a good team and it was a tough fixture; I am delighted with the display," he said. "Hull City is very special to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from both sets of supporters. The application of the players was superb."

Liam Rosenior holds this city dear to him, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his successful spell in charge of the Tigers. His happy association was extended with a commanding display from his team, who ultimately strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Finishing Secures Comprehensive Victory

Three days after surrendering a two-goal advantage in the league, there was a hint of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity Hull crowd evidently sensed it too, but the London side navigated the challenge perfectly.

The manager rang the changes, making multiple of them to his XI. The tie might and maybe should have been decided earlier than it actually was, with both the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for missing glorious opportunities to put Chelsea in front in the first half.

But, luckily for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the deadlock with a marvellous distance effort, which acted as the spark for his team to take command of proceedings. By full time, they had 4 goals, with the forward netting a trio of them for a brilliant hat-trick.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

The home side showed plenty of fight throughout, but the clearer chances consistently came to the visitors. The winger should have opened the scoring when he went past keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably shooting over. The striker then had a comparable horror incident in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a Phillips's kick which bounced off the crossbar, and Delap began to run away believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's backline had reacted to clear the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely instrumental from there on out, providing 3 key passes. The first was for the first goal as his through ball teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Turns

Seven minutes after the second goal, the match was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from Delap teed up his teammate to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his treble as Delap again delivered the crucial ball for the attacker to coolly convert past a stranded Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had put in in the first half-hour had been forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to achieving a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of 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 situation in the league," the Hull manager commented. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next matches this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

There was plenty of effort to the final whistle, and they nearly claimed a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a post in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another positive step forward for their recently-appointed head coach at a stadium he knows very well.

FA Cup Omens Look Promising

That resulted in an in the end straightforward evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three previous occasions in this tournament in the last decade and every single time, they have gone on to make the final. There is still work in that regard, but this was another significant positive for the Chelsea boss.