AS Roma coach Rudi Garcia has defended his team as their title push stumbles.

Roma have won only two of their last eight matches, having won the first 10 in a row, and are now eight points adrift of Serie A leaders Juventus.

Garcia said: "Nothing has stopped working, it's just that the 10 consecutive victories were extraordinary. We cannot compare the first part of the season to the second, as after that we were without Francesco Totti, Gervinho and others for long periods. You can make statistics say anything.

"It was very important to get back to winning ways in the Coppa Italia against Sampdoria on Thursday, we achieved that, so now we must continue along that path. It's a good sign that we create many scoring opportunities, though obviously it'd be better if we took more of them.

"If we reach the midway stage of the season with 44 points, it'd be a great result. It's the kind of tally worthy of a Scudetto contender and above all Champions League qualifiers, which is our real target."