Manchester City suffered their heaviest defeat this season against Middlesbrough as they were thrashed 8-1 in what could be manager Sven Goran Eriksson's last game in charge of the club.

Boro dominated the game from the start to finish as City looked woefully short of morale and form. Afonso Alves scored his first hat trick for Boro while Stewart Downing grabbed one goal each in either half. Adam Johnson, Fabio Rochemback and Jeremie Aliadiere also managed to hit the back of the net.

After a quiet opening to the game, Boro were given a penalty in the 15th minute when Richard Dunne was harshly adjudged to have fouled Sanli Tuncay in the penalty area and was given a red card. Dowining stepped up and calmly converted his chance from the penalty spot.

Alves doubled the scoring in the 37th minute as he latched on to a pass by Rochemback before slotting the ball past Isaksson. Boro continued to dominate in the second half and were 4-0 up by the hour mark with Downing and Alves once again finding the target.

City were struggling to create any chances of their own and things were not helped by a porous defense as Boro created a number of chances. Johnson made it 5-0 in the 70th minute when his shot took a deflection off Michael Ball before going into the net while Rochemback got himself on the score sheet with a delightful free kick 10 minutes later.

Aliadiere scored the seventh goal for Boro in the 85th minute before City managed to get one back through Elano two minutes later. However Alves restored his side's seven goal advantage by scoring his hat trick deep in injury time to complete the rout.