🔗 Share this article

Against a backdrop of freezing rain, flurries, and a swirling breeze off the waters of the Humber, combined with a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We might have scored more but the opposition are a good team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m delighted with the performance," he said. "Hull City is very special to me so it was nice to get a positive reception from both sets of fans. The attitude of the lads was excellent."

The Rosenior has this place dear to him, considering some of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Championship club. His positive connection continued with a magnificent display from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Edge Seals Comfortable Win

Three days removed from surrendering a two-goal advantage in the league, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The packed Hull support clearly sensed it too, but Rosenior's men handled the challenge with ease.

Rosenior made alterations, enacting seven of them to his starting lineup. The match might and perhaps ought to have been settled long before it actually was, with both Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of missing excellent opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the opening period.

However, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a marvellous long-range strike, which acted as the catalyst for Chelsea to assume control of proceedings. By full time, they had four, with Neto netting a trio of them for a brilliant hat-trick.

The Forward's Redemption and Impact

Hull displayed plenty of fight throughout, but the better chances always fell to the visitors. The winger should have opened the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a Phillips's clearance which bounced back from the bar, and Delap began to celebrate believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's backline had reacted to avert the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely influential from there on out, registering three assists. The opening was for the first goal as his pass set up his teammate to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went directly in through Phillips's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Shifts

Soon after Neto’s second, the tie was put beyond doubt as a dazzling dribble from Delap teed up his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his hat-trick as Delap again delivered the decisive ball for the striker to calmly slot by a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had done in the first half-hour had been forgotten. Their priority must now return to securing a promotion to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out several key individuals with that aim in mind.

"In my opinion we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong situation in the league," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming games this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great endeavour to the final whistle, and they almost claimed a consolation when a substitute hit a the upright in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' night, and another encouraging stride for their new manager at a place he is familiar with very well.

FA Cup History Look Promising

The result resulted in an ultimately straightforward evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three other times in this competition in the last decade and on each occasion, they have progressed to reach the final. There is still work in that respect, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.