Against a backdrop of freezing rain, snow, and a swirling breeze off the banks of the Humber Estuary, alongside a determined home side pushing hard for promotion, this had all the ingredients of a difficult night's work for the visitors.
"We could have added to our tally but the opposition are a strong team and it was a difficult tie; I’m very pleased with the display," he said. "Hull City means a lot to me so it was nice to get a positive reception from both sets of fans. The application of the players was excellent."
The Rosenior has this place dear to him, given part of his family hail from Hull and his successful period in charge of the Championship club. His positive association continued with a commanding display from his squad, who in the end strolled into the next round of the FA Cup.
Three days after surrendering a 2-0 lead in the league, there was a sniff of fragility about them going into this potentially tricky cup clash. The capacity home support clearly sensed it too, but the London side handled the task with ease.
The manager rang the changes, making seven of them to his XI. The tie might and perhaps ought to have been settled long before it eventually was, with two the Brazilian winger and Liam Delap at fault for missing glorious chances to put Chelsea in front in the first half.
But, fortunately for the visitors, their Portuguese attacker was in a far more ruthless mood. He broke the scoring with a marvellous distance effort, which acted as the spark for his team to take control of the match. By the final whistle, they had four, with the forward netting a trio of them for a brilliant three-goal haul.
Hull showed plenty of fight throughout, but the clearer chances consistently fell Chelsea’s way. Estêvão ought to have opened the scoring when he went past keeper the Hull stopper before inexplicably firing over. Delap then had a similar nightmare incident in front of goal against his former club.
He blocked a Phillips's kick which bounced off the crossbar, and he started to celebrate believing the ball had crossed the line. It hadn’t, and by the time he understood, Hull's defenders had responded to avert the threat.
The player 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 first goal as his through ball set up Neto to finish from outside the box. Shortly after the second half began, it was 2-0 as the forward's set-piece went straight in under the keeper's legs.
Seven minutes after the second, the tie was put beyond doubt as a dazzling run from Delap teed up his teammate to slide into an empty net. The hat-trick hero then completed his hat-trick as the provider again delivered the decisive ball for the striker to coolly slot past a helpless Phillips.
At that point, the work Hull had put in in the opening half-hour had long since forgotten. Their focus must now switch back to achieving a return to the top division under their manager, who left out a number of first-choice individuals with that goal in mind.
"I think we earned at least one goal but if we play like this we will be in a strong situation in the Championship," the Hull manager commented. "Never surrender, maybe in the upcoming matches this can be a good lesson of how we should play."
There was great effort to the final whistle, and they almost got a late goal when Lewis Koumas hit a the upright in stoppage time. But this was the Blues' evening, and another encouraging stride for their new head coach at a stadium he is familiar with intimately.
That resulted in an in the end straightforward evening’s work, and the FA Cup-shaped signs are positive from here for Chelsea. They have played Hull on three other occasions in this tournament in the last decade and on each occasion, they have progressed to make the final. There is remains to be work in that regard, but this was another significant tick for Rosenior.
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