3 games that cost Aitor Karanka his job at Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough 0-0 Leicester

Middlesbrough ended 2016 with four defeats in five and were slowly slipping down the Premier League table before the arrival of champions Leicester on New Year’s Day.

And given that Claudio Ranieri’s Foxes had picked up just two points in their eight away games prior to their trip to the Riverside Stadium, this was a real chance for Karanka’s men to get all three points.

But they didn’t in what was a dull, dour game in the North East, with Gaston Ramirez’s penalty miss symptomatic of their struggles in front of goal.

In fact, their ineptitude in the final third in that game was a sign of things to come in 2017, and their overall display against the Foxes mirrors that of what we’ve seen from them since as well.