The Portuguese Forward Fires Treble as The Blues Provide Liam Rosenior with Happy Homecoming to Hull City

Against a backdrop of sleet, flurries, and a biting wind from the waters of the Humber, combined with a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this presented all the ingredients of a difficult night's task for the visitors.

"We could have scored more but Hull are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I am very pleased with the performance," he said. "This club means a lot to me so it was great to get a positive reception from both sets of fans. The attitude of the players was excellent."

The Chelsea manager has this city close to his heart, considering part of his family are from Hull and his enjoyable spell in charge of the Championship club. This happy connection continued with a magnificent performance from his squad, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.

Deadly Edge Secures Comfortable Win

Three days after letting slip a two-goal lead in the Premier League, there was a hint of fragility about Chelsea going into this intriguing cup clash. The packed home crowd evidently sensed it too, but the London side navigated the task with ease.

The manager made alterations, enacting multiple of them to his XI. The tie might and perhaps ought to have been settled long before it actually was, with two Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of missing glorious opportunities to put their side in front in the opening period.

But, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless mood. He opened the scoring with a spectacular distance strike, which acted as the catalyst for his team to take command of proceedings. By the final whistle, they had four, with the forward netting a trio of them for a brilliant hat-trick.

Delap's Response and Influence

Hull showed plenty of fight all game, but the clearer opportunities consistently came to the visitors. The winger ought to have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a similar horror incident in front of goal against his old team.

He deflected a Phillips's kick which came off the crossbar, and he started to run away believing the ball had gone over the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to clear the threat.

Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was hugely influential from there on out, providing three key passes. The first was for the first goal as his pass set up Neto to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was two as the forward's corner went directly in under the keeper's legs.

Contest Sealed and Attention Shifts

Soon after Neto’s second goal, the tie was effectively ended as a dazzling dribble from Delap laid on his teammate to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then finished his hat-trick as Delap once again played the decisive pass for the attacker to coolly convert past a helpless goalkeeper.

By that stage, the work Hull had put in in the opening half-hour had long since erased. Their priority must now return to achieving a return to the Premier League under their manager, who left out a number of key players with that goal in mind.

"I think we deserved at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a strong situation in the Championship," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next matches this can be a good example of how we should play."

Hull showed great effort to the final whistle, and they nearly got a late goal when a substitute hit a post in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' night, and another positive stride for their new manager at a place he is familiar with intimately.

Cup Omens Are Good

That resulted in an in the end straightforward evening’s work, and the cup competition signs are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three other times in this competition in the last decade and every single time, they have gone on to reach the final. Much still done in that respect, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.