Juventus fail to get their act together

Juventus suffered a serious Serie A title setback when rock-bottom visitors Catania clinched a 2-1 win, handing the Turin giants a third straight defeat.

Juventus suffered a serious Serie A title setback when rock-bottom visitors Catania clinched a 2-1 win, handing the Turin giants a third straight defeat. Substitute Mariano Izco escaped three minutes from time to hammer the final nail in Juve's coffin on a dreadful day for Ciro Ferrara's team on Sunday, in which their fans once again chanted racist slogans.

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That loss was compounded later in the day when league leaders Inter Milan beat Lazio 1-0 at the San Siro to open up a nine-point gap over Juve heading into the winter break. AC Milan remained second, eight points behind Inter, despite their game at Fiorentina on Saturday being called off due to the weather.

Ferrara's side came into Sunday's match with four defeats from their last five games in all competitions, and with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and defensive rock Giorgio Chiellini both out injured. “I feel the same disappointment as the fans. We're going through a bad period, we're not getting the results expected of this team so of course I'm not happy,” said Ferrara.

“We wanted to react and we fought for 90 minutes but we made some mistakes in our finishing. It's a tough time but we have to stick together if we are to get through the storm.” After surviving an early penalty scare as Japanese forward Takayuki Morimoto went down under a challenge from

Nicola Legrottaglie, Tiago then gave one away as he tugged Nicolas Spolli's shirt in the box.

Jorge Martinez made the hosts pay as he stroked home the penalty. Even that failed to spark much life into Juve and on 32 minutes, Ferrara had seen enough and hauled off 20-million-euro Brazilian flop Felipe Melo, throwing on Bosnian veteran Hasan Salihamidzic in his place, with Melo roundly jeered as he trooped off.