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Amid sleet, flurries, and a swirling breeze off the waters of the Humber, alongside a determined Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a difficult evening’s work for Chelsea.

"We could have scored more but Hull are a good team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m very pleased with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City is very special to me so it was great to get a good reception from the fans of fans. The attitude of the players was superb."

The Rosenior has this place close to his heart, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in management of the Championship club. His positive connection continued with a magnificent performance from his team, who ultimately strolled into the next round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Finishing Secures Comprehensive Win

Seventy-two hours after letting slip a 2-0 lead in the Premier League, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this intriguing cup clash. The capacity home crowd clearly sensed it too, but the London side handled the challenge perfectly.

Rosenior rang the changes, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe should have been settled earlier than it eventually was, with both Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap at fault for spurning glorious opportunities to put Chelsea ahead in the first half.

However, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless mood. He broke the scoring with a marvellous long-range strike, which acted as the catalyst for his team to assume command of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had 4 goals, with Neto scoring a trio of them for a superb hat-trick.

Delap's Response and Influence

Hull displayed plenty of fight all game, but the clearer chances always fell to the visitors. Estêvão should have opened the deadlock when he rounded keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a similar nightmare moment in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a Phillips's kick which came back from the bar, and Delap started to run away believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's backline had responded to clear the danger.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely instrumental from there on out, providing 3 key passes. The first was for the first goal as his through ball teed up his teammate to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's corner went straight in under the keeper's legs.

Tie Sealed and Focus Turns

Seven minutes after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from Delap laid on Estêvão to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his hat-trick as the provider once again played the decisive pass for the striker to calmly convert by a helpless Phillips.

At that point, the effort Hull had put in in the opening thirty minutes had been forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under their manager, who left out a number of first-choice players 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 very good position in the Championship," he said. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming games this can be a positive lesson of how we must play."

Hull showed great effort to the final whistle, and they nearly got a late goal when Lewis Koumas struck a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s night, and another positive stride for their recently-appointed manager at a place he knows very well.

Cup Omens Are Good

The result made for an in the end straightforward night's performance, and the cup competition omens are positive from here for Chelsea. They have faced Hull on three previous occasions in this competition in the last decade and on each occasion, they have gone on to reach the final. There is still done in that respect, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.