Craig Gordon felt there had been a marked improvement in Celtic’s defensive performance during the 1-1 draw with Fenerbahce despite the loss of another avoidable European goal.

The goalkeeper allowed a long ball from Gokhan Gonul to somehow run through his legs, allowing Lazar Markovic to slide home a shot from a tight angle to put the home side in front late in the first half.

A second-half equaliser from Kris Commons rescued a point for Celtic and spared Gordon’s blushes, although the former Hearts player was not too hard on himself, believing he had just been “unlucky” to concede a goal from such a position.

He explained: “I thought the striker was favourite to win the ball. I was convinced he was going to get there before me and was also going to play for a penalty.

“But I said to myself ‘I’m not going to fall for that one’ and so I decided to let him take his touch wide. The fact he left it then caught me out. I thought he was clearly going to get to the ball before me. But the fact that he left it, I don’t know if that was because he expected me to tackle him or whatever.

“But then the ball went straight through and it was about trying to change direction to make sure the angle was too much for him down the line. The last thing I expected was for him to leave the ball – and frustratingly he’s then scored.

“It was just crazy. We’ve lost a few crazy goals in this campaign and that probably tops the lot. But I’m not too down. I think I’ve had a pretty good game. I’ve had a few good saves, I’ve come for a lot of crosses.

“I thought we played well in defence tonight. We didn’t give up loads of chances. Maybe a few, but that was always going to happen. I also managed to keep them out as best I could.

“I don’t think we can be too disappointed with that. We got our shape well defensively and didn’t allow them to play through us.”

Commons jokingly likened himself to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after emerging from the substitutes bench to score the equaliser with his first touch of the game, heading in an enticing cross from Mikael Lustig.

He laughed: “That was just like Solskjaer! I think we worked the goal brilliantly down the right hand side with Dedryck Boyata and Mikael. It was a really good goal. The big centre-half just misread it and I tried to guide it towards goal – thankfully it ended up in the back of the net.”

Commons admitted it had been a disappointing European campaign but also felt there was cause for optimism. He added: “We have mixed emotions at the end of the campaign. We've had some good results and performances where if we'd got a bit of luck they'd have been exceptional.

"When you think of Ajax away and Fenerbahce at home, we were disappointed not to get three points after picking up one.

“But the players in this squad are in their first full season playing European football. So hopefully they will learn more from the bad times than the good.”