CELTIC went into their Europa League match against Sparta Prague on the back of a 2-2 draw in France last Sunday and an impressive display at the weekend in the Scottish Cup semi-final victory over Aberdeen at Hampden.

Confidence was high within the Hoops squad, but on a disappointing night at Paradise, it was the Czech side who took all three points, comprehensively winning 4-1.

It was a performance and result that surprised Neil Lennon, given the way his team had played in their previous two games, and he is expecting an instant response when the team take on Motherwell at Fir Park on Sunday.

Speaking after the game, the Celtic manager said: “It was very disappointing and I don’t know where that performance came from. I thought we started the game reasonably well and then we got really ragged for some reason and lost our composure.

“We’ll have to have a sea change over the next couple of days and get back on point because we’ve gone from playing really well in the semi-final to an insipid performance tonight.

“We, as a collective, have to take this. It’s really disappointing. We thought we had a strong team out tonight, and then we had to change it. We got back to 2-1, and we were thinking, good, we’ve got a bit of a head of steam up now, and then we’ve given away two poor goals. The fourth one is academic, but the third one is the killer, and it’s really poor from our point of view.

I’ve got to lift the players and the staff have got to lift them, but they’ve got to lift themselves. They’ve got to get that hunger back.

“We have to concentrate on the league and the cup competitions when they come around but we need a definite reaction at the weekend.”

Manager: We need a response after a very poor performance