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Amid freezing rain, snow, and a swirling wind from the banks of the Humber Estuary, alongside a resolute Hull City side fighting for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging night's work for the visitors.

"We could have added to our tally but Hull are a strong team and it was a tough tie; I’m very pleased with the display," the manager stated. "This club means a lot to me so it was great to get a good reception from both sets of fans. The attitude of the lads was excellent."

Liam Rosenior has this city dear to him, given some of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable period in charge of the Championship club. This positive association continued with a commanding display from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Edge Seals Comfortable Victory

Three days after letting slip a two-goal advantage in the league, there was a hint of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The capacity home crowd clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the task perfectly.

Rosenior made alterations, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe ought to have been decided long before it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for missing glorious opportunities to put their side ahead in the opening period.

However, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a spectacular distance strike, which acted as the catalyst for his team to take control of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had four, with the forward scoring three of them for a superb three-goal haul.

Delap's Response and Impact

The home side displayed plenty of spirit all game, but the clearer chances always fell to the visitors. Estêvão should have opened the scoring when he rounded goalkeeper the Hull stopper before unbelievably firing over. The striker then had a comparable nightmare incident in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a Phillips's clearance which bounced off the bar, and he began to celebrate thinking the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had reacted to clear the threat.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely instrumental from that point onward, registering 3 key passes. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Shifts

Soon after Neto’s second, the match was put beyond doubt as a magnificent dribble from the forward laid on Estêvão to slide into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then completed his hat-trick as the provider once again played the crucial ball for the attacker to calmly slot by a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the effort Hull had put in in the first thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice players with that goal in mind.

"I think we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a very good position in the Championship," the Hull manager commented. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a positive example of how we must play."

Hull showed great effort to the end, and they almost claimed a late goal when a substitute struck a post in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another positive step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a stadium he is familiar with very well.

FA Cup History Are Promising

That made for an ultimately straightforward night's work, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three previous occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have gone on to reach the final. There is remains to be done in that regard, but this was another significant tick for the Chelsea boss.