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Amid freezing rain, snow, and a biting breeze from the banks of the Humber Estuary, combined with a determined Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s task for Chelsea.

"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 performance," he said. "This club means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from both sets of fans. The attitude of the players was excellent."

The Chelsea manager holds this city close to his heart, considering some of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable period in management of the Championship club. This happy connection was extended with a magnificent performance from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Seals Comfortable Victory

Three days after letting slip a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a sniff of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky tie. The packed Hull support clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the challenge with ease.

Rosenior rang the changes, making multiple of them to his XI. The match might and perhaps ought to have been decided long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of missing excellent chances to put Chelsea in front in the opening period.

But, luckily for the visitors, Pedro Neto was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a spectacular long-range effort, which proved to be the catalyst for Chelsea to assume control of the match. By the final whistle, they had four, with Neto netting a trio of them for a superb hat-trick.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

The home side showed plenty of spirit all game, but the better opportunities always fell to the visitors. Estêvão should have opened the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably shooting over. Delap then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which bounced off the crossbar, and he started to run away believing the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had reacted to clear the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, providing three assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Shortly after the restart, it was two as the forward's corner went directly in through Phillips's legs.

Tie Put Beyond Doubt and Focus Shifts

Soon after the second goal, the tie was put beyond doubt as a dazzling run from Delap teed up Estêvão to tap into an empty net. Neto then finished his treble as Delap once again delivered the decisive pass for the striker to calmly convert past a stranded Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had done in the first half-hour had been erased. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested a number of first-choice individuals 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 position in the Championship," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming games this can be a positive lesson of how we should play."

Hull showed plenty of effort to the final whistle, and they almost got a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a post in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging stride for their recently-appointed head coach at a stadium he is familiar with intimately.

Cup Omens Are Promising

That made for an ultimately routine evening’s work, and the cup competition signs are good from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three previous occasions in this competition in the last decade and on each occasion, they have gone on to reach the showpiece. Much remains to be done in that regard, but this was another huge positive for Rosenior.