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Amid freezing rain, snow, and a swirling wind from the waters of the Humber Estuary, combined with a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a difficult evening’s task for the visitors.

"We might have added to our tally but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m very pleased with the performance," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a good welcome from the fans of supporters. The application of the players was superb."

The Chelsea manager holds this city close to his heart, given some of his family hail from Hull and his enjoyable period in charge of the Championship club. This positive association continued with a magnificent display from his team, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Finishing Seals Comfortable Victory

Seventy-two hours removed from letting slip a 2-0 lead in the Premier League, there was a sniff of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity home crowd clearly sensed it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge with ease.

The manager made alterations, enacting multiple of them to his XI. The match could and maybe ought to have been decided earlier than it actually was, with two Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of spurning glorious opportunities to put their side ahead in the opening period.

However, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a spectacular long-range effort, which acted as the catalyst for his team to assume command of proceedings. By full time, they had four, with Neto scoring three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

The Forward's Redemption and Impact

Hull showed plenty of spirit throughout, but the better opportunities consistently fell to the visitors. The winger ought to have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably shooting over. The striker then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his former club.

He blocked a Phillips'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 responded to avert the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely instrumental from there on out, providing three assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to score from range. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went directly in under Phillips's legs.

Tie Put Beyond Doubt and Focus Shifts

Soon after the second, the tie was put beyond doubt as a magnificent dribble from the forward teed up Estêvão to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his hat-trick as the provider again delivered the decisive pass for the attacker to calmly slot by a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, 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 Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice 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 situation in the Championship," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming games this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great effort to the end, and they nearly got a late goal when a substitute hit a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s night, and another encouraging stride for their recently-appointed manager at a stadium he is familiar with intimately.

Cup Omens Are Promising

That resulted in an ultimately routine night's performance, and the cup competition signs are positive from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three other times in this competition in the past ten years and every single time, they have gone on to make the final. Much still done in that regard, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.