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Amid sleet, snow, and a biting breeze from the waters of the Humber Estuary, alongside a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a challenging night's task for Chelsea.

"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a good team and it was a difficult tie; I am very pleased with the performance," he said. "This club is very special to me so it was great to get a good welcome from both sets of fans. The application of the players was superb."

Liam Rosenior has this city close to his heart, considering some of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable period in management of the Tigers. This positive connection continued with a commanding performance from his squad, who in the end sauntered into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Edge Seals Comfortable Win

Three days removed from surrendering a two-goal lead in the Premier League, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The capacity Hull crowd evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge perfectly.

The manager rang the changes, making seven of them to his XI. The match could and maybe ought to have been decided earlier than it eventually was, with both Estêvão Willian and the forward at fault for spurning excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the opening period.

But, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a marvellous distance effort, which acted as the spark for his team to take control of the match. By full time, they had 4 goals, with Neto netting three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

Delap's Redemption and Influence

Hull showed plenty of fight all game, but the better opportunities always fell Chelsea’s way. The winger should have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably firing over. The striker then had a similar horror incident in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a Phillips's kick which came off the bar, and Delap began to celebrate believing the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had reacted to clear the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely influential from there on out, providing 3 assists. The opening was for the opening goal as his through ball teed up his teammate to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as the forward's corner went directly in through Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Shifts

Seven minutes after the second, the match was put beyond doubt as a dazzling dribble from Delap teed up his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. The hat-trick hero then finished his hat-trick as the provider again played the crucial pass for the attacker to coolly convert past a helpless goalkeeper.

At that point, the effort Hull had put in in the opening half-hour had been forgotten. Their priority must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out several first-choice individuals 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 position in the league," the Hull manager commented. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a positive lesson of how we should play."

Hull showed great endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly claimed a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a post in injury time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another positive stride for their recently-appointed head coach at a stadium he knows intimately.

FA Cup History Look Promising

The result resulted in an in the end routine night's performance, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three previous occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and every single time, they have progressed to make the showpiece. Much still done in that respect, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.