Amid sleet, snow, and a biting wind off the waters of the Humber, combined with a resolute home side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the makings of a difficult night's task for the visitors.
"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m very pleased with the performance," the manager stated. "This club means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive welcome from the fans of supporters. The attitude of the lads was superb."
The Chelsea manager has this place close to his heart, considering part of his relatives hail from Hull and his enjoyable spell in management of the Tigers. His happy association was extended with a commanding display from his team, who in the end strolled into the fifth round of the famous old competition.
Seventy-two hours removed from surrendering a 2-0 advantage in the league, there was a sniff of vulnerability about Chelsea going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The packed home support evidently felt it too, but the London side navigated the task perfectly.
Rosenior rang the changes, enacting seven of them to his XI. The match might and maybe should have been settled long before it actually was, with two the Brazilian winger and the forward guilty of spurning glorious chances to put their side ahead in the first half.
But, luckily for the away team, Pedro Neto was in a far more clinical frame of mind. He opened the scoring with a spectacular long-range effort, which acted as the spark for Chelsea to take control of proceedings. By full time, they had four, with Neto netting a trio of them for a superb three-goal haul.
The home side showed plenty of fight all game, but the better chances always came Chelsea’s way. The winger ought to have broken the deadlock when he went past goalkeeper Dillon Phillips before unbelievably shooting over. Delap then had a comparable horror moment in front of goal against his old team.
He deflected a Phillips's kick which bounced back from the crossbar, and he began to run away believing the ball had gone over the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he realised, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the danger.
Delap had his head in his hands after that miss, but he was immensely influential from that point onward, registering 3 assists. The first was for the opening goal as his pass set up Neto to score from range. Six minutes after the restart, it was two as the forward's corner went straight in under Phillips's legs.
Soon after the second, the tie was effectively ended as a magnificent dribble from Delap teed up Estêvão to slide into an unguarded goal. Neto then completed his treble as Delap once again delivered the crucial ball for the striker to calmly convert past a stranded goalkeeper.
At that point, the work Hull had put in in the first thirty minutes had been erased. Their focus must now return to achieving a return to the top division under Sergej Jakirovic, who rested several first-choice individuals 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 league," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next matches this can be a good lesson of how we must play."
There was plenty of effort to the end, and they nearly claimed a late goal when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was the Blues' night, and another encouraging step forward for their recently-appointed manager at a stadium he knows very well.
The result resulted in an ultimately routine night's performance, and the cup competition signs are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three previous times in this competition in the last decade and every single time, they have gone on to reach the final. Much remains to be done in that regard, but this was another significant positive for the Chelsea boss.
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