THEY were brought in to boost Celtic's Champions League ambitions, but the three transfer deadline signings maybe arrived too late for Neil Lennon to consider starting them tonight when they open up their group section at home to Benfica.

Qualifying for this stage of the competition would have helped fund the arrivals of Efe Ambrose, Miku and Lassad Nouioui, but I'm not so sure any of them will have managed to put themselves in the frame for a starting slot against the Portuguese.

Miku started against St Johnstone last Saturday and Lassad came off the bench. However, it might be asking a bit too much of either for them to be thrown straight into a match such as this.

And Ambrose, who arrived at Glasgow Airport yesterday, hasn't even trained with his new team-mates yet.

That, of course, is the problem when you sign players towards the end of either transfer window.

You do not have a great deal of time to try and introduce them to the rest of the group and to get them fully up to speed with the formation and system.

But you would like to think that by the time the next Champions League match comes along, away to Spartak Moscow on October 2, then they might be in contention to start, having no doubt had a couple of SPL appearances under their belts.