Roma coach slams side for 1-1 draw against Milan

AS Roma head coach Rudi Garcia has slammed his side for wasting the chance to beat AC Milan as a poor second-half performance saw them held to a 1-1 draw at the Stadio Olimpico here in Serie A.

Antonio Rudiger on Saturday opened the scoring for Roma when he latched on to Miralem Pjanic's free kick in the fourth miute. Milan equalised five minutes into the second half through Juraj Kucka to leave Roma with one win in last seven Serie A games.

Garcia's team is five points ahead of sixth-placed Milan, but trail leaders Inter Milan by five points.

"We deserved to win based on our first-half performance and lose based on our second. That shows we lacked consistency," Garcia told asroma.com.

"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 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."

However, the French coach is confident that his team can turn it around and that there are many football to be played before the league is decided.

"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," Garcia said.

"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."