'Ludicrous decision-making' - Lambert points finger at Celtic players

Former Celtic captain Paul Lambert has criticised the team's "ludicrous decision-making" in their humiliating Champions League exit to LASK. Celtic were 4-0 up on aggregate after Callum McGregor's opener in Austria before a slack pass from Benjamin Nygren allowed the hosts to narrow the deficit. The Austrian champions - who had 40 shots in the second leg compared to Celtic's eight - then capitalised on the visitors' second-half capitulation to win the tie 5-4 after extra time. Lambert, who played under manager Martin O'Neill during the manager's first spell, told BBC Scotland: "If you look over the two games the better team won. "I don't think Celtic helped themselves. Some of the decision-making on the field was ludicrous from Celtic's point of view. The first goal, it's incredible how they gave that away." After the game, O'Neill took responsibility for the defeat but Lambert suggested the players weren't doing the "fundamentals" correctly. "I worked under the manager for five years and the one thing he demanded is that you get close to people," he said. "If you're not stopping a cross or putting tackles in, that's the fundamentals of football." Celtic signed four players - Kasper Hogh, Camilo Duran, Mika Baur and Haissem Hassan - before the play-off but Lambert suggested the squad was still underprepared. "You'd have to live on the moon not knowing those two games are coming up," he added. "O'Neill would demand players that would be ready made for this team, not developing players. "They need ready-made players as getting into the Champions League is getting more and more difficult. They need to watch that they don't become a Conference League team. "A lot of the players have had it their own way for a lot of years. It's when things like this happen you need people to step up and really take it on the chin. "I know how the manager works, I know how he thinks, and he'll take responsibility to relieve the pressure on the players. But those players have to look at themselves as well and say 'We didn't do enough.'"