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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a swirling breeze from the waters of the Humber Estuary, combined with a resolute home side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this presented all the makings of a difficult evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a good team and it was a tough tie; I’m delighted with the performance," he said. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a positive reception from the fans of fans. The attitude of the lads was excellent."

Liam Chelsea manager holds this place dear to him, given part of his family hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Championship club. This happy connection was extended with a commanding performance from his squad, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Seals Comprehensive Win

Three days after letting slip a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a sniff of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The capacity home crowd evidently felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the task perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, making seven of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and perhaps should have been settled long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap guilty of missing glorious opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the opening period.

However, fortunately for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more ruthless frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a marvellous distance strike, which acted as the catalyst for Chelsea to assume control of proceedings. By full time, they had 4 goals, with the forward netting a trio of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

Delap's Redemption and Impact

Hull displayed great spirit throughout, but the better opportunities always came to the visitors. Estêvão should have broken the deadlock when he rounded goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a similar horror incident in front of goal against his former club.

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

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely instrumental from that point onward, registering three key passes. The first was for the opening goal as his pass teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as the forward's corner went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Attention Turns

Soon after the second goal, the match was effectively ended as a dazzling run from the forward teed up his teammate to tap into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then completed his treble as the provider once again delivered the crucial ball for the striker to coolly slot by a stranded Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had done in the first half-hour had been forgotten. Their focus must now return to achieving a return to the Premier League under their manager, who left out several key players with that aim in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a very good situation in the league," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a positive example of how we must play."

Hull showed plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly claimed a consolation when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s night, and another encouraging step forward for their new manager at a stadium he is familiar with very well.

Cup Omens Look Good

That resulted in an in the end straightforward evening’s performance, and the cup competition omens are good from here for Chelsea. 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 remains to be work in that regard, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.