Juventus look set to join Celtic in 10-in-a-row dismay

IT is not just Celtic who are in danger of capitulating in their bid to claim a 10th successive league title.

Over in Italy, Juventus’ decision to parachute in club legend Andrea Pirlo for his first managerial post looks set to cost them dearly, as the Old Lady’s grip on the Serie A scudetto grows weaker by the week.

Sunday night’s 2-0 defeat to Inter leaves Juve trailing the two Milan teams by quite a distance down in fifth place. And, although there is still more than half a season in which to play catch-up, it doesn’t look good for Cristiano Ronaldo and co at this juncture.

In a cruel twist of fate, one of the scorers in the San Siro at the weekend was former Juve player Arturo Vidal – Nicolo Barella got the other – with Inter’s win overseen by Antonio Conte who previously managed the defending champions.

Third-placed Napoli kept up their own faint title hopes with a crushing 6-0 defeat of Sampdoria

but it already looks like being a straight two-horse race between the Milanese giants, with Milan in action away to Cagliari last night.

While it looks like a changing of the guard is on the cards in Italy, over in Germany the dice continue to fall favourably for Bayern Munich.

A rare recent slip-up from Hansi Flick’s men had fleetingly opened up the possibility of a new Bundesliga champion being crowned for the first time since 2012.

But, as has so often happened in the subsequent nine years, the chasing pack again failed to capitalise.

Bayern didn’t play until Sunday but would have taken great comfort in seeing all of their socalled title rivals slip up before them, with only one of the other top seven clubs – Union Berlin – savouring a victory.

RB Leipzig’s stuttering challenge took another backwards step when they could only draw with Wolfsburg, as did Borussia Dortmund at home to second-bottom Mainz thanks to Marco Reus’ last-minute penalty miss. Bayer Leverkusen were beaten in the capital on Friday night.

That gave Bayern plenty of motivation ahead of their own match against Freiburg and goals from Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller eased them through to a 2-1 win. Their lead at the top now stands at four points.

In Spain, there was further disappointment for Barcelona in a so-far underwhelming campaign when they were beaten in the Super Cup Final by Athletic Bilbao.