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Amid sleet, flurries, and a swirling wind off the banks of the Humber Estuary, combined with a determined Hull City side fighting for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult fixture; I am very pleased with the performance," the manager stated. "This club is very special to me so it was great to get a positive welcome from both sets of fans. The attitude of the players was superb."

The Chelsea manager has this city dear to him, given some of his relatives hail from Hull and his successful period in management of the Tigers. This positive association was extended with a magnificent performance from his squad, who ultimately sauntered into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Deadly Finishing Seals Comfortable Victory

Seventy-two hours after letting slip a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a sniff of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The capacity Hull crowd clearly felt it too, but the London side handled the challenge with ease.

Rosenior made alterations, making seven of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe ought to have been settled earlier than it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap guilty of spurning glorious chances to put Chelsea in front in the opening period.

However, luckily for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a much more clinical frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a marvellous distance effort, which acted as the spark for Chelsea to assume control of the match. By the final whistle, they had 4 goals, with the forward netting three of them for a brilliant hat-trick.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

Hull showed plenty of fight all game, but the clearer opportunities always fell to the visitors. The winger should have broken the scoring when he rounded keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a Phillips's clearance which came off the crossbar, and Delap started to run away thinking the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's backline had reacted to clear the danger.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, providing three assists. The opening was for the opening goal as his through ball teed up Neto to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the restart, it was two as Neto's corner went directly in through the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Focus Shifts

Seven minutes after Neto’s second goal, the tie was put beyond doubt as a magnificent dribble from the forward laid on Estêvão to tap into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his hat-trick as Delap once again played the decisive ball for the striker to calmly convert by a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the work Hull had done in the opening thirty minutes had long since erased. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the Premier League under Sergej Jakirovic, who left out a number of first-choice players with that aim 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," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a good lesson of how we must play."

There was great endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly got a late goal when a substitute struck a post in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another positive stride for their recently-appointed manager at a place he knows very well.

Cup History Are Good

That made for an ultimately routine evening’s performance, and the cup competition signs are positive from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three other occasions in this competition in the past ten years and on each occasion, they have progressed to make the showpiece. Much remains to be work in that regard, but this was another huge positive for Rosenior.