Amid sleet, flurries, and a swirling breeze from the waters of the Humber, alongside a resolute Hull City side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the makings of a challenging evening’s work for Chelsea.
"We might have scored more but the opposition are a good team and it was a difficult fixture; I’m delighted with the performance," the manager stated. "Hull City is very special to me so it was nice to get a good welcome from the fans of supporters. The application of the players was excellent."
The Rosenior has this city dear to him, given part of his relatives hail from Hull and his successful spell in management of the Championship club. His happy association was extended with a magnificent display from his team, who ultimately strolled into the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Seventy-two hours after letting slip a two-goal advantage in the league, there was a hint of vulnerability about them going into this intriguing tie. The capacity home crowd evidently sensed it too, but Rosenior's men handled the task with ease.
Rosenior rang the changes, making multiple of them to his starting lineup. The tie might and perhaps should have been settled long before it actually was, with both Estêvão Willian and the forward guilty of missing excellent chances to put Chelsea in front in the first half.
However, luckily for the visitors, Pedro Neto was in a far more ruthless 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 four, with Neto scoring three of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.
The home side showed great fight all game, but the better opportunities always came Chelsea’s way. Estêvão should have broken the deadlock when he rounded goalkeeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. The striker then had a comparable nightmare moment in front of goal against his old team.
He blocked a Phillips's clearance which came back from the bar, and Delap started to run away thinking the ball had crossed the line. It had not, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the danger.
The player had his head in his hands after that moment, but he was hugely influential from that point onward, providing three key passes. The first was for the first goal as his pass teed up Neto to finish from outside the box. Six minutes after the second half began, it was two as Neto's set-piece went directly in under the keeper's legs.
Soon after the second, the match was put beyond doubt as a dazzling run from Delap laid on his teammate to tap into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then completed his treble as Delap again delivered the decisive pass for the striker to calmly convert past a helpless Phillips.
By that stage, the effort Hull had put in in the opening thirty minutes had long since forgotten. Their priority must now switch back to securing a return to the top division under their manager, who rested a number of first-choice individuals with that aim in mind.
"I think we earned at least one goal but if we perform like this we will be in a strong situation in the Championship," he said. "Keep fighting, maybe in the next games this can be a positive example of how we should play."
There was plenty of endeavour to the final whistle, and they almost claimed a consolation when a substitute struck a the upright in injury time. But this was Chelsea’s evening, and another encouraging step forward for their new head coach at a place he knows intimately.
That made for an in the end routine night's performance, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for the winners. They have faced Hull on three other times in this tournament in the last decade and every single time, they have gone on to reach the showpiece. Much still done in that respect, but this was another huge tick for the Chelsea boss.
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