Brendan Rodgers saw his Celtic side draw 1-1 with Suduva in Lithuania and rued the poor defending that cost the team a goal.

Olivier Ntcham had put the visitors ahead in the third minute but Celtic were pegged back minutes later when Odivijus Verbickas headed home unchallenged from a free-kick.

Rodgers has seen his defence criticised this season and had himself pointed out goals conceded that could have been prevented in recent matches. Again, he lamented the ease with which the opposition was able to hurt his team.

"We gave away a soft goal," he said. "That is a real, real concern now.

"We are not giving away many chances but we don't defend the set-piece well enough.

"It's an away European goal, we go back next week to finish the job, but as I've said before I look to the performance level and we weren't quite where we would want to be.

"We seem to lack concentration. That is a problem for us. And a pride, really, in terms of defending. That is pretty clear. In games like this one, especially away from home, we have got to really demonstrate that hunger not to concede. And it was too easy for them.

"It was a terrific ball in, don't get me wrong, but we have to defend it much better than that. It gave them some oxygen in the game when our start and early goal shouldn't have.

Having put themselves in a strong position so early on, Rodgers was unhappy that Celtic didn't build on the advantage and couldn't convert possession into goals.

"I thought we made really hard work of it, to be honest," he said. "We made a good start, Mikey Johnston showed a great bit of skill and I thought he did well for his first start in a European game. That was the perfect start.

"But after that we came off plan a wee bit. We were running too much, blocking each other's spaces and not really playing with the tempo and intensity which we want".

The manager said that there were various ways that the defensive lapses could be eradicated.

"There are numerous answers to this," he said. "Whilst you work with what is here, you have to try and improve it, make it better.

"For me, it's a level of concentration, a pride in your defending and an aggression in your defending. These are really important factors.

"I felt for the supporters tonight. They have come all the way out there, maybe 200 of them, on trains, buses, the whole thing.

"It's a disappointing performance from them. Okay, they have seen a goal but we have to be much better."