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

"We might have scored more but the opposition are a strong team and it was a tough tie; I’m very pleased with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was great to get a positive welcome from both sets of supporters. The application of the lads was excellent."

The Chelsea manager has this city close to his heart, considering some of his relatives are from Hull and his successful period in management of the Tigers. His positive association continued with a commanding performance from his team, who in the end sauntered into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Seals Comprehensive Win

Three days removed from surrendering a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The capacity home crowd clearly felt it too, but the London side handled the task perfectly.

The manager rang the changes, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and perhaps should have been settled long before it eventually was, with two the Brazilian winger and the forward at fault for missing glorious 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 broke the scoring with a marvellous distance effort, which proved to be the catalyst for his team to assume command of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had four, with the forward scoring a trio of them for a brilliant hat-trick.

The Forward's Response and Influence

The home side displayed plenty of fight throughout, but the clearer opportunities consistently fell to the visitors. The winger ought to have opened the scoring when he rounded goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably shooting over. The striker then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which came back from the bar, and Delap started to celebrate thinking the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's backline had reacted to clear the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was immensely instrumental from that point onward, registering three assists. The first was for the first goal as his through ball teed up Neto to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Focus Turns

Soon after the second goal, the match was effectively ended as a dazzling run from the forward teed up his teammate to slide into an empty net. Neto then finished his treble as the provider again played the decisive ball for the attacker to calmly slot past a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the effort Hull had put in in the opening thirty minutes had long since erased. Their priority must now return to achieving a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice players with that aim in mind.

"I think we earned at least one goal but if we play 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 good lesson of how we should play."

Hull showed plenty of effort to the end, and they almost claimed a late goal when Lewis Koumas hit a post in injury time. But this was the Blues' night, and another positive step forward for their new head coach at a place he is familiar with very well.

Cup Omens Are Good

That made for an ultimately routine evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this competition in the last decade and on each occasion, they have progressed to make the showpiece. Much remains to be work in that respect, but this was another significant positive for Rosenior.