The hosts were behind to the Hungarian champions inside seven minutes at Celtic Park and, despite pulling level at the beginning of the second half, Ferencvaros struck again 15 minutes from time to send Celtic into the Europa League qualifying rounds.
Celtic have repeatedly struggled to negotiate Champions League qualifying games, losing to AEK Athens and Cluj in the past two seasons, and Lennon was furious with his side’s performance at both ends of the pitch.
“I’m devastated,” he said. “It shouldn’t happen. It’s a poor result and we dominated the game. We had so many chances but we conceded two really poor goals. We all have to take responsibility for it. I have to take responsibility in terms of the team selection but we had more than enough chances to win the game twice over.
“For the first goal, only [Scott Brown] is getting out to close the shot while the second one is an individual error which we should’ve dealt with comfortably.
“It was a basic mistake. We’re making basic defensive mistakes and sometimes you can’t legislate for that. We did the same against Copenhagen when we were on top. Hatem Abd Elhamed was in a decent position and all he had to do was deal with it but he doesn’t. But in the final third we should’ve done better as well as we had so many chances to score.”
Celtic have already dropped points in the Scottish Premiership this season, too, and Lennon criticised his side for over-confidence and said they must step up their levels.
Some of their attitudes need to be better. I’m just detecting a bit of malaise sometimes among them and they’re not as good as what they think they are. ~ Celtic boss Neil Lennon
“The players need to buckle up,” he said. “They’ve been OK but some of their attitudes need to be better. I’m just detecting a bit of malaise sometimes among them and they’re not as good as what they think they are.
“We need to analyse where we went wrong and focus on the rest of the season.”
Lennon: Some players want to leave
Lennon also revealed after the match some players had spoken to him about a desire to leave the club during the transfer window. The Celtic boss said he would not stand in the way of anyone who wants to play elsewhere and insisted he only wanted players committed to the club in his squad.
“There are some players who may want to leave and have made in-roads into that over the past six months or so,” he said. “If they don’t want to be here then we’ll have to do something about it.
“If they’re making waves to leave the club then they’re obviously not committed and I want players who are committed to the club.”
SOURCE: Sky Sports