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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a swirling breeze off the banks of the Humber, alongside a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a difficult night's work for Chelsea.

"We might have added to our tally but Hull are a strong team and it was a difficult fixture; I am delighted with the display," he said. "This club means a lot to me so it was great to get a good welcome from both sets of fans. The application of the lads was superb."

The Rosenior holds this place dear to him, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in management of the Championship club. This happy association continued with a commanding display from his team, who ultimately strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Secures Comprehensive Win

Seventy-two hours removed from letting slip a two-goal lead in the Premier League, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing cup clash. The capacity Hull crowd evidently sensed it too, but the London side navigated the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, making multiple of them to his XI. The tie might and perhaps should have been decided earlier than it actually was, with both the Brazilian winger and the forward guilty of missing excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the first half.

However, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a spectacular long-range effort, which acted as the catalyst for Chelsea to take command of the match. By full time, they had 4 goals, with Neto netting three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

The Forward's Response and Impact

Hull displayed plenty of spirit all game, but the clearer chances consistently fell to the visitors. Estêvão should have opened the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a similar horror moment in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a the goalkeeper's kick which came off the crossbar, and he began to run away believing the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, 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 miss, but he was hugely instrumental from there on out, registering 3 assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Put Beyond Doubt and Attention Turns

Soon after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from Delap teed up Estêvão to tap into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then finished his treble as the provider again played the crucial ball for the striker to calmly slot past a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had put in in the opening thirty minutes had long since erased. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of key individuals with that aim 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," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming matches this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly got a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a the upright in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another encouraging stride for their recently-appointed head coach at a place he is familiar with intimately.

Cup Omens Are Good

That resulted in an in the end routine night's performance, and the cup competition signs are good from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have progressed to make the showpiece. There is still done in that regard, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.