10 Worst Man Utd Performances This Decade

5. Middlesbrough 4-1 Man United, 2005

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PklpdW-DQgE It was a game that not only highlighted the weaknesses and deficiencies that were ravaged within the Manchester United squad, but the ramifications also cost club captain Roy Keane his job. Allegedly incensed by the tepid display offered at the Riverside, the injured Irishman proceeded to slam his team-mates in an MUTV analysis of the game, which Sir Alex Ferguson chose never to air such was the severity of his comments. Keane certainly has a different take on events, and insists that the players he was apparently so hard on actually agreed with his sentiments, but that€™s neither here nor there. The fact of the matter was that this game showed just why Manchester United were so far behind Chelsea in the race for the title. Middlesbrough bullied and battered the Red Devils, pushing them around with ease. Within the opening two minutes, a speculative effort from Gaizka Mendieta had found the back of the net. Veteran striker Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink doubled the Teesiders€™ money soon after, twisting Rio Ferdinand in the box before slotting past a bewildered Edwin van der Sar. Before long, it was 3-0, as Yakubu slotted home a penalty to send the Riverside into raptures. They were in further dreamland in the second half when Mendieta added a fourth, before Cristiano Ronaldo€™s header proved a late consolation. It was a hideously embarrassing display by a side well off the pace in the race for the title, and Ferguson and Carlos Quieroz looked understandably ashamed upon the sounding of the full-time whistle.