Celtic crashed to a dire 4-0 defeat in Utrecht last night, having taken a 2-0 lead to Holland, meaning they now exit Europe having failed to make the group stages of the Europa League.

Back in former midfielder Lennon's heyday as a central figure in Martin O'Neill's Celtic side, the club were disappointed if they failed to make the last 16 of the Champions League.

Lennon was quick to take personal responsibility for the heavy loss in the immediate aftermath and today forced his squad to sit through the action again at a players' meeting at the club's Lennoxtown base that delayed his planned media conference by more than an hour.

He said: "The feelings in defeat are compounded a lot more as a manager than as a player because the bulk of the responsibility falls with you. You pick the team and set them out to get a result and we've failed on that account.

"We just had a meeting there and watched the game again. It still feels pretty raw and very disappointing.

"We keep shooting ourselves in the foot and not giving ourselves a chance. We were pretty average in all departments really.

"It's a sore one, it's a setback, but we have to learn from that very quickly.

"The players are hurting. A lot of them are new to the club, but it's still not an excuse really. They're better players than what they showed last night.

"Ultimately I take the responsibility because I pick the team so I've been analysing myself and my own performance.

"I felt we had a decent balance and had pace going forward so I thought I picked the right team. We were still in the tie at half-time, but then conceded 54 seconds into the second half which isn't good enough."

Lennon is bemused that Celtic showed none of the form they took into the tie with virtually the same players who seemed to have bonded in the 4-0 weekend win over St Mirren, suddenly looking like they had never met.

Celtic travel to Motherwell on Sunday with Lennon anxious that the cohesion returns against opposition who went out of Europe at the same stage.

Lennon added: "The side that lost last night was more or less the same team that beat Utrecht the week before and played very well at the weekend.

"That team won 2-0 in the first leg and played well on Sunday against St Mirren so in the space of a few days we go from a team full of confidence, vigour and quality to a very disjointed outfit.

"That's a mentality thing. All the things we'd shown, the athleticism, the speed, it shouldn't go away in four days so it must be a mental thing and it's something we need to analyse to see what we can do better.

"People say 'you learn from these things', but I'm not so sure because we don't seem to be learning from it.

"I've done a lot of soul searching last night and I'm fed up with coming away from Europe with my tail between my legs, but again it's just another episode of that."

Lennon confirmed that striker Marc-Antoine Fortune has departed for West Brom, but denied a deal has already been done with Hibernian to replace him with Anthony Stokes.

The Easter Road club's leading scorer last season turned down Celtic when Gordon Strachan was manager for a move to Sunderland which went badly wrong for him.

Lennon said: I'm not anywhere with Anthony Stokes, it's just a name and a potential target. We had an offer from West Brom for Marc-Antoine. We spoke about it and were happy for him to stay, but he didn't want to miss out on the Premier League so we wish him well.

"I like Anthony Stokes, I like his attitude and his appetite for goals. His scoring record in Scotland is pretty good, but I'm not aware of the price tag put on him."

Lennon added he has made a decision about who will keep goal for Celtic on Sunday, but refused to confirm the widely-held belief that Fraser Forster will make his Celtic debut, after joining on loan from Newcastle, in place of Lukasz Zaluska.