Incredible Morata backheel blunder compounds Juventus woes as Serie A holders drop more points

Alvaro Morata did little to endear himself to the Juventus faithful on Wednesday with an incredible blooper in front of goal as his side were held 1-1 by Atalanta. 

The Turin side have spluttered and started in this, their 10th consecutive Serie A defence, in 2020-21. 

Before kick-off Andrea Pirlo's men trailed Milan by four points as they sat in third, and they did little to close that gap on Wednesday. 

Federico Chiesa fired his team into the lead with a fine goal in the first half, but Atalanta hit back through Remo Freuler to level the scores 57 minutes in. 

Cristiano Ronaldo was given an almost immediate chance to restore his side's advantage, the Portugal ace missed from the penalty spot to spurn an opportunity to move ahead of Milan's Zlatan Ibrahimovic as Serie A's top scorer. 

The miss was Ronaldo's fourth failed penalty out of 30 attempts since joining Juventus - however, it was not the most eye-catching miss of the evening, which instead came from team-mate Morata who had drawn attention for all the wrong reasons when he made a mess of a golden opportunity to open the scoring. 

The Spanish striker found himself clear of the Atalanta backline with Ronaldo in close pursuit, and looked set to either convert or set up his colleague - but first he underhit his pass to Ronaldo, forcing the ex-Real Madrid sharpshooter too close to goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini who stopped one-on-one. 

When the rebound fell into Morata's path he reacted with a weak backheel attempt that dribbled off the pitch wide of the net, to Atalanta's clear relief. 

Morata was arguably in an offside position when he tried his botched trick, which would explain the lack of reaction from his team-mates at the blunder. 

It was in any case an afternoon to forget for the ex-Madrid and Atletico star, who had mustered three shots in total before being withdrawn for Paulo Dybala in the final minutes - and Juve have now handed the initiative back over to Zlatan and Milan as well as Inter, who could pull three points clear of their rivals with victory over Napoli on Wednesday.