Garcia: We lacked consistency

The French coach bemoaned his side's Jekyll and Hyde display, ruing the chances spurned early on.

"We deserved to win based on our first-half performance and lose based on our second. That shows we lacked consistency," began Garcia. "It's a shame because the team made a really strong start to the match. Besides the goal, we had two good opportunities through [Umar] Sadiq and [Antonio] Rudiger's header off the woodwork. It's a shame we didn't convert them. Then we forgot how to play in the second period."

What did you make of the crowd's protests?

"After our second-half performance it's natural the fans haven't gone away happy. Nor am I. I told the lads that we can and must do a lot better. As I've said, we have to be consistent because without that you can't win football matches and we saw that tonight."

How can you solve the two sides to Roma?

"All we can do is work hard and ask ourselves the right questions to improve. We're only halfway through the league season and all is not lost but when you have chances to close the gap on the league leaders - as we did tonight - you have to take them. It looked like we had the chance to do so at the start of the match but then we shut down after the break and a side like Roma cannot afford to do that."

Is it a psychological and physical problem?

"We all need to look at ourselves - as I've said - from a tactical, physical and technical perspective. Obviously it's not good enough to drop so deep when we're leading - that's a tactical issue. Plus it's not acceptable to see that the players can't last 90 minutes. We've had the winter break and AC Milan also played three days ago. To perform well technically, the players need to be physically fit but I expect more given the quality of some of the players at my disposal."

From a psychological perspective how can you respond?

"Now we have to retreat into a cocoon, help ourselves out and that's what matters most. We'll struggle to string a run of victories together until we show greater spirit. That happens when you're not playing with enough confidence and fear creeps in. That's not a good sign. Today we had the chance to cut the deficit on the top four but we missed out. We'll do everything we can with the staff to figure out what's not working. We'll analyse this game and then we'll chat to the lads to work out what happened in the second half."

When [Edin] Dzeko is fit again, will Sadiq drop to the bench?

"What matters is that everyone can be involved. We saw that in the first half - more players mean greater quality. Edin will return and we saw the captain back again tonight too. He also needs to rediscover full fitness and we'll be stronger once Kevin Strootman is back too. I'm delighted with Sadiq. It's a shame he missed that chance early on but he's young and is doing his bit."

Do you feel under pressure?

"That's the least of my worries. Now all I'm concerned with is figuring out how to improve this team. We have to play like we did in the first half - even better in fact - and not reproduce what we did in the second period tonight."