Henri Bedimo said Lyon were punished for being "wasteful" as their 2-1 Champions League loss to Gent ended their 2015-16 European campaign.
Hubert Fournier's Lyon had to beat the Belgian champions to keep their hopes of reaching the last 16 alive and they got off to the best start on Tuesday as Jordan Ferri opened the scoring after just seven minutes.
A fine free-kick from Danijel Milicevic brought Gent level before the break and, despite creating a number of second-half chances, Lyon were ultimately punished as Kalifa Coulibaly scored with the final action of the game to secure the win.
With Lyon consequently bowing out of Europe in their last ever continental game at the Stade de Gerland, Bedimo was left to rue the way they approached the game after the first goal.
"Having opened the scoring, we did the opposite of what we had to do," he told BeIN Sport.
"We backed off, we had to push on to score the second goal. But it's also because this team forced us to back off. We couldn't handle it.
"We missed out narrowly, we were too wasteful, we rushed and we lost the ball too quickly. We lost confidence during the game and it became difficult.
"We had to put in a lot of determination and focus. It's a big disappointment."
Gent are now up to second in Group H and will progress to the knockout round if they match Valencia's result on matchday six.
