🔗 Share this article

Against a backdrop of freezing rain, snow, and a swirling breeze off the banks of the Humber, alongside a determined Hull City side pushing hard for a top-flight place, this had all the ingredients of a challenging evening’s work for the visitors.

"We could have added to our tally but Hull are a strong team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m very pleased with the performance," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a good welcome from the fans of fans. The application of the lads was superb."

Liam Rosenior has this place close to his heart, given some of his relatives are from Hull and his successful period in charge of the Championship club. This positive connection continued with a commanding performance from his team, who ultimately strolled into the next round of the famous old competition.

Clinical Finishing Seals Comprehensive Victory

Three days after surrendering a two-goal lead in the Premier League, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky tie. The capacity home crowd clearly felt it too, but the London side navigated the challenge with ease.

Rosenior rang the changes, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and maybe should have been settled earlier than it actually was, with both Estêvão Willian and Liam Delap guilty of missing glorious opportunities to put their side in front in the first half.

However, fortunately for the away team, their Portuguese attacker was in a much more clinical frame of mind. He broke the scoring with a marvellous distance effort, which proved to be the spark for his team to assume command of proceedings. By full time, they had 4 goals, with the forward netting a trio of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.

The Forward's Redemption and Influence

Hull showed plenty of fight all game, but the better opportunities always came to the visitors. Estêvão should have broken the scoring when he went past goalkeeper the Hull stopper before unbelievably firing over. Delap then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his old team.

He blocked a the goalkeeper's kick which came back from the crossbar, and he started to celebrate thinking the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the threat.

The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely instrumental from there on out, registering 3 key passes. The opening was for the opening goal as his through ball teed up Neto to score from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was 2-0 as Neto's set-piece went directly in through the keeper's legs.

Contest Put Beyond Doubt and Focus Shifts

Soon after Neto’s second goal, the tie was put beyond doubt as a dazzling run from the forward teed up his teammate to tap into an unguarded goal. The hat-trick hero then finished his hat-trick as Delap again delivered the decisive ball for the striker to calmly slot by a stranded goalkeeper.

By that stage, the work Hull had done in the opening half-hour had long since erased. Their priority must now switch back to achieving a promotion to the Premier League under their manager, who left out a number of key individuals 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," the Hull manager commented. "Keep fighting, maybe in the upcoming matches this can be a good example of how we should play."

There was plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they nearly got a consolation when Lewis Koumas struck a post in stoppage time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging stride for their new head coach at a stadium he knows intimately.

FA Cup History Are Good

That made for an in the end straightforward night's performance, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for the winners. They have played Hull on three other times in this tournament in the last decade and on each occasion, they have gone on to make the final. Much still work in that regard, but this was another significant positive for Rosenior.