Neil Lennon admitted to Barcelona’s strength on Wednesday night, but also was critical of most of his Celtic players’ performances.
The Scots were hit with a 6-1 defeat in Group H’s final fixture, to equal their heaviest defeat in the European Cup and leave their manager unhappy.
“Barcelona were fantastic – as we expected them to be – but we were very poor,” Lennon commented afterwards.
“For some of the players that was an unacceptable performance. It was nowhere near reminiscent of the performances we've put in previously against Barcelona and that's very disappointing.
“There was no bravery on the ball. We started off nervously and it looked like our heads went down at 2-0.
“There were only two or three players who showed anything – Virgil van Dijk, Adam Matthews and Mikael Lustig, along with the goalkeeper [Fraser Forster] who I'd excuse as well. The rest of the team were very poor and well below the standards they've set themselves.
“We changed it up and went more defensive – going 4-5-1 – but that didn't stop the blood flowing. We were weak and that's not been like us. That's something I'll need to address and I need to look at going forward. There was no difference to how we approached the previous games against Barca, we set the team out exactly the same way.
“Looking at them before the game, I sensed a little bit of quiet among them so we tried to get them motivated before they went out there.
“You could see straight away there were some really loose passes in difficult areas and we didn't play anywhere near our strengths.
“We are better than that. I'll have to analyse it and look at the character that was there tonight. There wasn't much of it. I wouldn't say some players gave up, but it certainly looked that way. Some players didn't do their jobs, which they were assigned to do.
“We looked very open in the second half through the middle. That's not normally an accusation you can throw at the players, especially the two centre-halves who have been wonderful for us this season. They were done by very good movement and passing.”
