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Amid sleet, flurries, and a swirling breeze from the banks of the Humber, alongside a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this presented all the ingredients of a difficult evening’s work for the visitors.

"We could have scored more but the opposition are a good team and it was a difficult fixture; I am delighted with the performance," he said. "This club is very special to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from both sets of supporters. The attitude of the players was excellent."

Liam Chelsea manager holds this city close to his heart, given some of his relatives are from Hull and his successful period in charge of the Championship club. His happy association continued with a commanding display from his team, who ultimately sauntered into the next round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Edge Seals Comfortable Victory

Seventy-two hours removed from letting slip a 2-0 advantage in the Premier League, there was a hint of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity Hull support evidently sensed it too, but the London side handled the challenge with ease.

Rosenior made alterations, making seven of them to his XI. The tie might and maybe ought to have been settled long before it eventually was, with two Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap at fault for spurning excellent opportunities to put their side in front in the opening period.

But, fortunately for the visitors, Pedro Neto was in a much more ruthless mood. He broke the scoring with a spectacular distance effort, which proved to be the spark for Chelsea to assume control of the match. By the final whistle, they had 4 goals, with the forward scoring three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

The Forward's Response and Influence

The home side displayed great fight all game, but the clearer opportunities consistently fell to the visitors. The winger ought to have opened the deadlock when he rounded goalkeeper the Hull stopper before unbelievably shooting over. Delap then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his former club.

He deflected a the goalkeeper's clearance which bounced back from the bar, and Delap began to run away thinking the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the danger.

Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely instrumental from that point onward, providing 3 assists. The opening was for the opening goal as his through ball set up Neto to score from range. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went directly in through Phillips's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Focus Turns

Seven minutes after Neto’s second, the match was put beyond doubt as a magnificent dribble from Delap laid on his teammate to tap into an empty net. Neto then finished his hat-trick as Delap once again delivered the decisive pass for the attacker to coolly slot past a helpless goalkeeper.

By that stage, the effort Hull had done in the opening half-hour had been forgotten. Their priority must now return to achieving a promotion to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested a number of key individuals with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion we deserved at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a strong position in the Championship," the Hull manager commented. "Never surrender, maybe in the next matches this can be a good example of how we must play."

Hull showed great endeavour to the end, and they almost got a late goal when a substitute struck a the upright in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s night, and another encouraging step forward for their new head coach at a stadium he is familiar with intimately.

FA Cup Omens Look Promising

That resulted in an in the end routine evening’s performance, and the cup competition omens are good from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this competition in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have gone on to make the showpiece. There is still done in that regard, but this was another significant positive for Rosenior.