Amid sleet, flurries, and a swirling breeze from the waters of the Humber, combined with a determined Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the makings of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.
"We might have scored more but the opposition are a good team and it was a tough 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 superb."
Liam Chelsea manager has this place close to his heart, considering some of his family hail from Hull and his successful period in management of the Tigers. This positive association continued with a commanding performance from his squad, who in the end sauntered into the next round of the famous old competition.
Seventy-two hours removed from letting slip a two-goal lead in the league, there was a sniff of vulnerability about them going into this potentially tricky tie. The packed Hull crowd evidently sensed it too, but Rosenior's men navigated the task with ease.
The manager made alterations, enacting multiple of them to his XI. The match might and perhaps should have been decided earlier than it actually was, with both the Brazilian winger and the forward at fault for missing excellent opportunities to put their side in front in the opening period.
But, luckily for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a much 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 the final whistle, they had four, with the forward scoring three of them for a superb hat-trick.
The home side showed great fight throughout, but the clearer chances consistently fell Chelsea’s way. Estêvão ought to have opened the scoring when he rounded 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 deflected a Phillips's clearance which bounced back from the crossbar, and Delap started to run away thinking the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had responded to avert the threat.
Delap had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was immensely instrumental from there on out, registering 3 key passes. The first was for the opening goal as his pass set up Neto to score from outside the box. Shortly after the second half began, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went directly in through Phillips's legs.
Soon after Neto’s second goal, the match was put beyond doubt as a magnificent run from the forward teed up Estêvão to tap into an empty net. Neto then finished his hat-trick as the provider again delivered the crucial pass for the attacker to coolly slot past a stranded Phillips.
At that point, the work Hull had put in in the first half-hour had been erased. Their focus must now return to securing a return to the top division under their manager, who rested several key players with that aim in mind.
"I think we earned at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a very good situation in the league," the Hull manager commented. "Never surrender, maybe in the next games this can be a positive example of how we must play."
Hull showed plenty of effort to the final whistle, and they almost claimed a late goal when Lewis Koumas hit a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another positive step forward for their recently-appointed head coach at a stadium he knows intimately.
That resulted in an ultimately routine evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have gone on to reach the showpiece. Much remains to be done in that regard, but this was another significant tick for the Chelsea boss.
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