Turin, March 7: Alvaro Morata scored twice to help Juventus to a 3-1 home win over Lazio on Saturday (March 6) and keep alive their faint hopes of a 10th consecutive Serie A title.
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The Bianconeri, who started with Cristiano Ronaldo on the substitutes' bench, had started sluggishly and fell behind inside 15 minutes courtesy of Joaquin Correa's third league goal of the campaign.
Adrien Rabiot pulled them level with their first shot on target in the 39th minute, though, before Morata's quickfire double after the break – the second from the penalty spot – sealed a third win in four top-flight games.
Andrea Pirlo's side remain in third, but have moved to within a point of Milan and seven of leaders Inter, having played the same number of games.
FT | ⏱ | A BIG AND BRILLIANT BIANCONERI WIN!!! 💪⚪️⚫️#JuveLazio #FinoAllaFine #ForzaJuve pic.twitter.com/p6sYJAZ4Y2
— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) March 6, 2021
Lazio, who had gone close through long-range efforts from Mohamed Fares and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic early on, deservedly went ahead after 14 minutes.
Correa cut inside from the left, turned Merih Demiral inside out and coolly slotted past Wojciech Szczesny into the bottom-left corner.
The Juve goalkeeper got down well to repel another Milinkovic-Savic drive soon after as Lazio continued to press, while Morata headed wide at the other end.
Juve pulled level six minutes before the interval when Morata played in Rabiot, who unleashed an unstoppable drive into the roof of Pepe Reina's net from an acute angle.
Milinkovic-Savic was again in the thick of the action at the start of the second half, the Serbian heading against Szczesny's crossbar from Luis Alberto's looped ball over the top.
It was Juve who scored next, though, Morata superbly firing past Reina in the 57th minute after being released by the impressive Federico Chiesa.
Morata then secured maximum points for the reigning champions three minutes later, slotting home from the spot after Aaron Ramsey had been brought down inside the area by Milinkovic-Savic.