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Amid freezing rain, flurries, and a biting breeze from the waters of the Humber, alongside a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s task for the visitors.

"We might have added to our tally but Hull are a good team and it was a tough tie; I’m very pleased with the display," he said. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a positive reception from both sets of supporters. The attitude of the players was excellent."

The Chelsea manager holds this city close to his heart, given part of his relatives are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in management of the Championship club. This positive connection continued with a magnificent display from his team, who in the end sauntered into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Clinical Edge Secures Comfortable Win

Seventy-two hours after surrendering a two-goal advantage in the Premier League, there was a sniff of fragility about Chelsea going into this intriguing tie. The capacity home support clearly felt it too, but Rosenior's men handled the task perfectly.

The manager rang the changes, enacting multiple of them to his XI. The tie could and maybe should have been settled long before it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and the forward guilty of missing glorious chances to put their side ahead in the first half.

But, fortunately for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more clinical mood. He opened the deadlock with a marvellous long-range effort, which acted as the catalyst for Chelsea to take control of the match. By full time, they had four, with Neto netting three of them for a superb three-goal haul.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

The home side showed great fight throughout, but the better chances consistently fell to the visitors. The winger ought to have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a comparable nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a Phillips's clearance which came off the crossbar, and Delap started to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had reacted to clear the threat.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely instrumental from there on out, providing three key passes. The opening was for the first goal as his pass set up his teammate to finish from range. Shortly after the restart, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Attention Shifts

Seven minutes after the second, the match was put beyond doubt as a magnificent run from the forward laid on his teammate to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his treble as the provider again played the decisive ball for the attacker to coolly convert past a stranded goalkeeper.

At that point, the effort Hull had done in the first thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their priority must now return to securing a promotion to the Premier League under their manager, who left out a number of key players with that goal in mind.

"In my opinion we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong position in the league," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the upcoming matches this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great effort to the end, and they almost claimed a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a post in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' night, and another encouraging stride for their new head coach at a stadium he knows intimately.

Cup Omens Are Promising

The result resulted in an in the end straightforward evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped omens are positive from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three previous occasions in this competition in the last decade and every single time, they have progressed to reach the showpiece. There is remains to be done in that regard, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.