United's woeful season, in manager David Moyes's maiden campaign, took another turn for the worse as they went down 2-0 to Greek champions Olympiakos in Piraeus yesterday and the measure of the task awaiting the English champions at Old Trafford in three weeks time is that only one team has come back from a two goal first leg deficit before in the Champions League knockout stages.
United's failure to score left English clubs goalless in this round, with both Arsenal and Manchester City failing to score last week although Chelsea can set that right agaisnt Galatasaray on Wednesday.
Manchester United had been just one of three teams coming into the knockout stages not to have lost thusfar in this season's competition but goals from veteran Alejandro Dominguez and a stunning curling effort by Costa Rican Joel Campbell -- on loan from Arsenal -- ended that record.
United can take heart that they have won 13 of their last 15 home games in the knockout stages of the competition although their last defeat was at this stage last year to Real Madrid.
"It's the worst we've played in Europe, that's for sure," said Moyes, whose side are struggling to even make the competition next season as they trail fourth-placed Liverpool by 11 points.
"It was a really poor performance. We never really got going from the start and we didn't deserve anything because of the way we played.